A Rage Deep Inside
by AnneM.Oliver
Summary: No one believed her. They thought she was a murderer and a liar. She was out to prove them wrong. She had an unlikely champion in her corner, her victim's father: Lucius Malfoy. Having him believe her was important. Having him love her was so much more.
1. Chapter 1 A Place to Start

**All characters belong to JK Rowling**

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Summary: No one believed her. They branded her a fortunate hunter & a liar. She had to prove them all wrong, not for herself, but for him, and also to silence a deep rage inside her soul. She found she had a most unlikely champion. Lucius Malfoy was the last person she expected to fight in her corner, and believe her story. Having him believe her was a start. Having him beside her was something even more.

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**A Rage Deep Inside**

**by**

**AnneM**

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**Chapter I: A Place to Start:**

She walked into the abandoned, large mansion and she felt immediately ill at ease. Something wasn't right here. Something had been disturbed since she was last here. Of course, the last time she was here was over a year ago, and the house was still inhabited. A lot had changed since then.

She roamed through the large foyer, stared into the sitting room on her left, and then turned her head to the morning room on her right. She walked in there first. All of the furniture was covered with cloths, yet the place still seems musty and stale. She pulled the long, white cloth from the piano and sat down on the bench. She hit the center 'C'. It sounded out of tune.

He watched her from the corner of the room. Her senses were off, or she would have noticed him immediately. She looked so different, her appearance so altered. Gone was the vivacious, beautiful young woman who always appeared happy and full of life.

In her place was a pale, gaunt woman, with sunken, ashen eyes and a frown. A lot had happened in the last year to change not only the demeanor of the woman in front of him, but also her looks. For one thing, her future husband, his only son, died on the eve of their wedding, supposedly at her hand, if one was to believe the only witness.

Two, this woman was no longer happy. In fact, she radiated sadness, and even a certain amount of rage, which was to be expected, though not welcome. He cleared his throat so that she would know she was no longer alone.

She heard someone clear their throat, and she turned around on the circular stool, wand at the ready, other hand over her heart. "Lucius," she said as a greeting, placing her wand back in the pocket of her winter coat. She left the piano uncovered and walked past the man, back to the foyer.

"I heard you were being released today," he said.

She didn't respond. She walked down the hallway, and looked up the large, circular staircase. The chandelier, which was as large as some people's flats, was covered with so much dust and so many cobwebs that she wasn't sure any light would pass through, but she turned it on anyway. It hung high up on the second floor, in the middle of the massive, circular staircase. She turned to the right, to head toward the dining room, but instead, at the last moment, turned to head left, to the library.

Lucius followed.

"Where are all my books?" she asked, turning on the light as she entered this room. The shelves were almost empty.

He shrugged. "Perhaps they were put in storage."

She whipped around to him and said, "By whom? No one had any right to come into this house!"

"I beg your pardon, but this was my son's house too, so I had the right. I had the elves closed it up, when you went away. If I had known you were coming back here, well, if I had enough prior knowledge that you were coming back, I would have had them ready it for you again," he explained.

"It doesn't matter, I'm not staying here." She flicked off the lights, walked past him, and headed toward her original destination, the dining room.

"Are you looking for something?" he asked.

She had just stepped over the threshold, but she turned back to the man quickly and said, "Why are you here?"

"I came to welcome my daughter-in-law home. Was that wrong of me?" he asked, disdainfully.

"Our wedding didn't take place. I'm nothing to you, unless you consider me the murderer that everyone else considers me to be. Leave, now," she barked.

"You are in no position to tell me what to do, _Daughter_. If it wasn't for me, you would still be rotting away in that prison. Remember that." He turned from her quickly, his robes billowing out behind him. She ran behind him.

"I didn't ask for your help!" she argued. "I don't need anyone's help!"

"No?" he asked, turning on her so quickly that she took a step backwards. He pressed her against the wall, his body not quite touching hers, but very close. "The court system would beg to differ, since you have been put into my care, my dear. For all intents and purposes, I am all you have. I am the reason you're here! I'm the reason you aren't rotting away in Azkaban at this very moment! I'm all you have at the moment! Not a very welcoming thought, I realize, but there you have it."

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm not going to stay here, and I won't be your responsibility. I appreciate that you helped me get a temporary reprieve, but that means nothing." She walked past him, edging away from him, so that her back skimmed the wall.

He grabbed her arm. She looked down at his hand as it circled her wrist. "It means everything, my dear. Don't forget, you are at my mercy. You've been left in my care. You are free because of me! I won't let you go off on your own!"

"WHY?" she shouted. "Never mind! As soon as I find out who really killed your son, then I'll be free of you, free from all of this, and you'll never have to see me again." She dipped her head to her chest. "I'm so tired," she mumbled. She looked up at him. "I'm so very tired."

He reached out and rubbed his thumb under her eye, over the shadow that fell there. "I know," he said softly.

"Why do you believe me when no one else does?" she asked. Her head fell forward. "Even my friends thought I killed him."

He reached for her, holding her cheek in his hand. "You would never kill someone you loved, and I know without a doubt that you loved my son, as he told me he loved you. I also want to find out who killed him. Besides, not everyone thinks you killed him. You're free, aren't you? Others must believe you're innocent."

"My sentence was commuted to involuntary manslaughter, Lucius. That means that they still think I killed him. They think two hours before I was to marry the man, I raised a vase, hit my fiancée on the head, caused him to stagger backwards, where he hit his head on the marble mantle of the fireplace. The eyewitness said that I did it in the throes of anger. I claim I didn't do it all. I ran in the room after he was already on the ground." She began to sob. "The problem is the eyewitness testified under Veritiserum that his story was true, and I have a black hole in my memory regarding everything that happened from the moment I found Draco on the floor in his blood onward."

"It didn't help facts that the eyewitness was your former best friend, Ron Weasley, either," Lucius barked. "Or that your other supposed best friend, Harry Potter, believed him over you."

"What am I to do? I have to find out the truth!" she insisted. She clutched his robes in her hands.

"No, what you have to do is to put all of this behind you. You're free, you're out of prison, who cares why," he said. She looked at him incredulously, and then he smiled. "Did you believe any of that? Of course you have to find out the truth, and now that you're no longer in prison, you'll be able to do so, and you'll have me to help you, but we have to do this my way. Do you agree?"

She stared at him, wide eyed, confused. "Why are you helping me again?"

"To find the murderer of my son, and to put him in prison where he belongs, to avenge the wrong that was committed to you," he said slowly. There might be other reasons, but she didn't need to know them.

"Did you know that Draco was going to back out of our wedding at the last moment?" she asked. That was something she found out only after he was killed.

Unfortunately, that was some of the more damning evidence that was held against her at the trial, and that little tidbit happened to have been true. Lucius knew it at the time. He saw no reason to lie to her now. "Yes, he told me he was having second thoughts."

"But you still claim that he loved me?" she asked meagerly. She walked over and sat down at the long cherry table, resting her chin in her hand. "I wish he had told me."

"I think he must have changed his mind again, because I'm sure he would have told you before the wedding day if he had decided not to marry you. I'm certain of it." Lucius sat beside her. "My son was a tortured soul, I'm sorry to say. You helped him in many ways, but in many others, you were a constant reminder of his past and his sins. You knew he had many dark days."

She nodded. "I tried to help him."

"Sometimes a person can only help themselves," he answered.

"Did you ever think I killed him?" she asked. She needed to know.

"Does it matter?" he asked. He leaned away from her, and sighed.

She nodded. "It does to me. Please, tell me."

Hermione stared at the man whom she once hated. The man was pushing forty-five but didn't look a day over thirty-five. He was as handsome as ever, well groomed, tailored black robes, blonde hair perfect in every way. His face was handsome, sometimes cruel, but always handsome. He had been a widower for five years, and a man without a son for one. He gave her a slight shrug and said, "I blamed you at first. I hated you with a passion. Then, when they took his body away, and I saw you leaning over him, crying out for him, and I knew, you couldn't have done it. You didn't try to leave, or state your innocence, or beg for mercy.

"Your only concern, the entire time you were in custody with Potter and the other Aurors was for whether or not Draco was alive or dead. I watched from the other room, already knowing he was gone. I knew you were innocent. I still know it. Such passion isn't false."

He looked at her chocolate brown eyes and took her small hand in his. He felt sympathy for her, but he also felt something much more. He couldn't define what he felt. It was detached, and foreign, and perhaps forbidden. He wanted to help her, prove her innocence, help her find her son's killer, but more than anything, he WANTED her.

Merlin help him, or curse him forever, but he did. Lucius Malfoy wanted Hermione Granger in every conceivable way.


	2. Chapter 2 A Place to Stay

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 2: A Place to Stay**

"Well, Lucius," Hermione said, "You may take your leave now. I'm tired, and I think I'll stay here tonight after all. I need to get one of the bedrooms ready. I don't think there are even sheets on any of the beds." She walked past him and went straight to the grand staircase.

He watched her go for a moment, smiled, and then followed. He reached for her arm just as she stepped upon the first step.

His smiled felt plastered on his face as he said, "What part of 'being under my care' do you not understand?"

"You aren't serous!" she accused. She pulled her arm from his grasp and stormed down the step, her finger pointing to his chest. "Listen here, Malfoy Senior! Harry Potter dropped me off here at my insistence, even though he told me I was to be under your watchful gaze as well. I assume that really means I'm free to be where I want, and I want to be here! I realize this place isn't much any longer, thanks to you and the fact that you had it stripped of everything. Still, it was my home for years, before I even fell in love with your son, and it was his home for the last year of his life, so I'm staying here!"

He laughed, though he found nothing funny from her rant, and said, "You seriously think I would let you stay here in this seedy little Muggle neighborhood, where you aren't safe? I hardly think so."

"Seedy? Not safe? Not safe from what? What's out to get me, Malfoy?" she asked with her hands in the air. "And this 'seedy little Muggle neighborhood' as you call it is in a very ritzy part of London, with mansions, Malfoy! Mansions! Fine, this house only has fifteen rooms compared to the eighty or so at the Manor, but it's not exactly a hovel and I'll appreciate it if you would leave now! I've had a tiring day and an even more tiring year!"

He stepped closer to the woman in front of him, her gaunt, pale expression full of fire and he was at a loss. Should he tell her of the dangers facing her, or continue to lie to her, as he had intended to do?

The truth was that she was in danger. She was a target. The people or person who killed his son also wanted her dead. They had hoped to do that in prison, but she had spent the last year at a detention center, instead of being sent to Azkaban. Unknown to Lucius at the time, Potter had arranged that, due to the fact that he actually knew of the danger to her from the beginning. In the last few months, it appeared that she was no longer safe at the detention center either. Therefore, Potter, along with a few trusted people and Lucius Malfoy, along with a few of his associates, arranged for her 'release'. Translation: Hermione Granger, for all intents and purposes, had broken out of jail, though she thought she had been released.

The result being, she wasn't safe here, whether a mansion or a hovel.

He stepped forward, his eyes predatory, and he said, "Understand this, Hermione. You will come with me to the Manor. I take my job as…" he paused, when he almost said 'protector', "as probationary counselor seriously."

She snorted. He smiled.

"I'll humor you for now, though I still plan to convince you that I would be better off here," she said. She walked toward the den, where she had started to enter when she first arrived. She walked up to the window, pulled back the heavy drapes, and looked outside. She was in a winter wool coat, made of fine material, and was dressed in nice clothing, but yet she looked so altered, so different. She removed the heavy coat, placing it across a chair that was covered in a white cloth. He almost hissed sharply at what he saw before him.

He took a second to really look her over, and noticed that she was so much thinner than she was before. He could see her bones protruding from the lightweight v-neck jumper she wore. He could see her spine, and when she raised her hand to place it on the windowpane, he could see the outline of her ribs.

Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her skin was so pale and wan that she almost looked ill. Her eyes, normally the warmest and richest part of her, still sparkled, but they also showed sadness and pain. He wanted to hit something, or beat something, for what had happened to her, to his son, to all of them.

Someday, someone was going to pay severely for what they took from all of them.

His mind kept up the dark thoughts; so much so that he hadn't noticed that she had turned her back to the window. With eyes that held as much pain as they once held warmth, she was watching him just as surely as he was watching her. He felt a frisson of pleasure when his stare caught hers. She felt it too, he knew she did. She turned back to the window.

Hermione felt flushed and warm knowing Lucius was staring at her. He was staring at her as if he 'knew' a secret about her. He was staring at her as if he knew her soul, or as if he wanted to know it. It made her uncomfortable.

"Look at me," he said.

She jumped, and turned, and looked at him as he requested. Her defenses were on edge, and she had to fight the urge to flee from this man, or rush into his arms. However, he commanded that she look at him, though he was looking past her, toward something outside.

Then two things happened very fast. She heard the glass behind her break. She felt Lucius wrap her in his arms. She hadn't even seen him move…he moved that fast. A sob escaped her as she fought against the man who was now on top of her on the floor. His breath was hot on her neck, and she turned her head slightly, looked up at him and said, "What happened?"

Then she quickly fainted.

Harry Potter, who had been placing wards around the back of the house at the time of the attack, ran toward the front when he heard the crash of the window. He didn't see anything outside, but a smashed bush in the front, and a broken window. He rushed inside, where he saw Lucius Malfoy holding Hermione Granger in his arms on the floor.

"Is she?" Harry asked, not able to continue.

"I think she passed out," Lucius replied. He kept her on his lap, his hands running lightly over her body, to make sure she was alright. He moved to his knees, and though he was twenty years older than the woman on the floor, he lifted her with ease. He took her to the room where he had first met her today, the room at the other side of the foyer, and he placed her on a sheet-covered sofa.

Harry looked at the window and said, "Damn, as I was protecting the house with wards to keep magic out, someone used a damn gun to shoot at her."

He ran back outside. Lucius stayed by Hermione's side as she opened her eyes. She looked up at Lucius and said, "What happened?"

"This nice Muggle neighborhood, which you seem to be so proud of, seems to have a crime problem, seeing that you were shot at through the front window in the den." He raised one eye brow in a 'so there' stare. She started to sit up, but he actually pushed her back down and said, "Oh, do stay there, Hermione. I'm an old man, and I can't keep picking you up off the ground."

"You picked me up?" She blushed. He smiled at the blush, despite himself. Then she said, "You're not that old."

"Really?" he drawled out. Hermione sat up again, and instead of pushing her back this time, he pulled her to her feet. She was close to him and his body hummed with want and anticipation. He said, "I'll go get your coat. You left it in the other room. It's cold in here. Stay right where you are." He walked away from her, because if he had stayed within that close proximity for another moment, he might have done something rash like kiss her or something. He looked over his shoulder and said, "Oh and Potter is still here, you know. He's nosing around outside to find out who shot at you. As soon as he leaves, I'll take you to the Manor."

Lucius walked out of the room, and she said, mostly to herself, "I'm staying here." She walked back to the dining room, though she didn't know why. She just knew she had to get some distance between her and Malfoy. She felt as if an alarm was sounding in her brain, warning her to stay away from him, because he was dangerous. He was a former Death Eater, he was the father of her former fiancée, and she found that she felt a strange attraction for him. That would never do. She held onto the back of one of the dining room chairs and willed herself to calm down, and to think rationally. She had to figure out what she was going to do, where she was going to go, why someone would have shot at her, and why in the world was she suddenly attracted to Lucius Malfoy.

The door to the dining room opened with a slight creak, causing Hermione to look toward the sound from her place by the table. Walking toward her was none other than Harry Potter along with his former arch-enemy, Lucius Malfoy. Hermione thought they made an odd pair. Lucius walked through the door first, and then Harry, who pushed the door lightly, even though it banged against the wall as he entered.

Lucius said, "I told you to stay put in the other room."

She shrugged. Behind him Harry, who looked upset and resigned, said, "She rarely does what she should, Malfoy."

Hermione gasped. She felt done in, finished, and she turned from his piercing green eyes and walked over toward the bay window. She sat in the window seat, placed a hand on the glass and said, "I thought you had left."

"No, not yet," he said. He looked at Lucius and nodded with a curt, "Malfoy," as he sighed and then added, "May I speak with you alone, in the other room?"

Hermione perked back up and looked toward the men. Harry had escorted her here from the detention center that had been her home for the past year. He had not taken advantage of their time to say anything to her during her release, nor during the car ride back to her former home. She had been under the impression that he had left after dropping her off in front of the house. Apparently not. "You can talk to Lucius in here, Harry, in front of me," she said with an exasperated expression on her face.

"I know I have the ability to do that," he said, making fun of the fact that she used the word, 'can', which was something she used to do with him all the time, "I just wish not to. Lucius?" He looked back toward the older man and walked through the dining room, out the other door, toward the kitchen.

"Stay here, and this time I really mean it," Lucius commanded to Hermione. He followed Harry to the kitchen. "What Potter?"

"Don't tell her the reason she was released early, do you understand?" Harry demanded.

Lucius rolled his eyes and said, "Didn't we already have this conversation? Didn't you already warn me once that I was to play by your rules? She's to believe her sentence was commuted, and that she is released into my care for the time being. Under no circumstances am I to tell her that you've gained intelligence that her life was in danger while she was in jail, and that you believe whoever really killed my son now wants her dead."

"Listen, Malfoy," Harry said, his eyes darting back to the door between the rooms, "If you aren't up to this, tell me now. If you can't keep her safe, I'll take her somewhere else."

"What makes you think I can't keep her safe?" Lucius asked, his eyes aglow with anger. "It isn't my fault someone shot at her here! You were supposed to bring her to the Manor, remember? When I found out that you were bringing her here, I didn't have time to make sure it was safe. Apparently, neither did you!"

"Listen, when I told you earlier that she insisted we bring her here before we take her to your house, you told me you would meet her inside and convince her right away to leave, yet I waited outside for a half an hour and she never came back out. What the hell were you two doing in here? Having tea?" Harry walked closer to the older man and said, "I'm doing something here that goes against ever fiber of my being: I'm trusting you of all people. I can't trust my bosses and I can't trust my partner. There is no one at the Ministry that I can trust, so that leaves you. Are you up for the task or not?"

"You do what you must to uncover the plot against her, and find out who killed my son, and I'll keep her safe, Potter," the older man warned. "But know this; it won't be easy to convince her not to investigate on her own."

"I know that, and that's why she's in danger," Harry said. "That's why I have to keep her at arm's length as well. She has to keep thinking I'm one of the enemies. I knew from day one that she was innocent, but the evidence, Malfoy, the evidence was so insurmountable that it was a bridge even I couldn't cross at the time. Just keep her safe."

"Harry?" Hermione poked her head in the swinging door that connected the kitchen to the dining room.

"Yes?" he asked, running his hand through his unruly black hair.

"You may leave now. You too, Malfoy. I've decided that I'll stay here tonight. I already fixed the front window with magic. I think someone must have thrown a rock at it or something, but I'll be safe, I'm sure. All I have to do is get one of the guest bedrooms ready, and then tomorrow, I'll decide what I want to do, and where I want to go."

Harry looked at Lucius and said, "You take this one."

Lucius smiled at her and said, "I already explained this to you, my dear. Let me reiterate that you've been entrusted into my care, during this transition period following your release. That means you'll come back to the Manor with me."

She looked at Harry first, then to Lucius, then back to Harry. Her hands were clenched in fists of rage and she spat, "You were serious, Harry, when you said that a condition of my release was that I had to stay under house arrest with Lucius Malfoy, of all people, during my probation period? What fool decided that? He's not exactly a paragon of virtue!"

Harry couldn't help but to laugh. "Regardless, that's what you have to do, or I'll take you back to jail myself. Also, it wasn't a rock that flew in your window. It was a bullet, Hermione, a bullet; therefore, you aren't safe here, so go to the Manor."

He knew she would be safer at Malfoy Manor than anywhere else in the world, and that was all that was important to him right now. Also, he knew that he had broken many laws himself, by 'breaking' her out of jail, and if she was hiding at Malfoy Manor, no one would know. He had gone to a lot of trouble to get her out, and he wouldn't have her ruin it now. She was still staring at him, hands on hips, eyes glaring, and he said, "Give it a rest, Granger. It's go with Malfoy, or go back to jail. Pick your poison."

An hour later she was sitting in a chair at Malfoy Manor. She had refused to move from it from the moment that Harry had left her there. Lucius walked into the small parlor where she sat and said, "One of the house elves has your suite ready. Wouldn't you like to wash up before dinner?"

She didn't answer. She didn't look at him. She didn't say a thing.


	3. Chapter 3 A Place to Rest

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 3: A Place to Rest**

Gazing into the fire, Hermione hadn't moved from the chair where she had sat down when she first arrived at the Manor six hours ago. She was tired, hungry, and the very fact that this massive house had at least twenty bathrooms made her see red, because she wanted to visit one of them, any one of them, more than she wanted almost anything…and yet…she hadn't moved from this chair.

The reasons were as simple as they were complex. She was being held prisoner.

Did Harry and Lucius think she was stupid? She knew she wasn't free to come and go as she pleased. She didn't know why, but she knew that Harry and Lucius were keeping her here, against her will, and she was bound and determined to find out. She was also bound to escape. She needed to find Draco's killer and she couldn't do that if she was still a prisoner. That one goal had kept her from going insane this last year, and she would not be deterred.

So she had two main goals in mind, one long term, one short term. She needed to find Draco's killer, (long term) and she needed to escape this new prison (short term.) Oh – and she had a shorter term goal: she needed to find a toilet.

She found one near the foyer. She walked along the hallway and noticed that the house was uncommonly quiet at night, but not in an uneasy, uncomfortable way. She found this quiet peaceful, consoling, and very much needed. She started back into the parlor when she heard the large grandfather clock in the hallway chime two times. It was two in the morning.

She was so tired, in so many ways. She needed to find a place to rest, to lay her weary head. Instead of turning left to go back into the main parlor, she turned right, followed the hallway for several meters more and then she stopped in front of a set of double doors.

She opened the doors slowly and started inside the huge library. Lucius was sitting in a large chair by the fireplace. He had a glass of firewhiskey in one hand. He didn't look her way. He merely said, "Come in and join me, daughter-in-law."

From the doorway she said, "I was never your daughter-in-law."

He smiled to himself, a rueful smile, and said, "I know." He was both angry and happy for that fact. "Have you finally decided to go to bed, or have you come in here to hex me?"

"Do you think I could find a way to do both?" she asked, less than contritely.

He turned in his seat, slowly, and regarded her. "Was that humour?" he asked, one eyebrow in the air.

"I don't know anymore," she said seriously. "I really think though that I might like to do both, so perhaps it was a serious comment." She walked into the library and responded, "This was always one of my favourite rooms in this house."

"Draco hated this room," Lucius said offhanded.

Hermione winced. "May we make a pact? Perhaps we could even put it in writing," she said lightly, coming to stand in front of him.

"Only if you agree to sign it in blood," he leered.

"Eew," she whined. She made a funny face.

He sighed. "That was my attempt at humour," he pointed out. He stood up in front of her. "I already know what you want, and I agree."

"You do?" she said, surprised.

He nodded and held out his hand. She placed hers in his and he held on tight, shaking her hand up and down, as he said, "I think we should go back to the ancient practice of Mudbloods being sex-slaves to purebloods, too and I'm so glad you agree."

She wrenched her hand from his and said, "That's not humour, because that's not the least bit funny! I'm tired, and I'm just, well, very, very tired, so don't play around with me!"

She plopped on the sofa that sat along the far side of the room. He walked up to her and said, "I know, I know. I also really know what you wanted to say. I agree to stop mentioning Draco. It's painful to you. You see, it's the opposite for me. I find comfort in talking about him, and I don't really have anyone to talk about him with, but I understand that I've had proper time to mourn him and you haven't, so things are still fresh and open for you."

She lowered her head and started to cry. Watching her cry, and wanting to comfort her, felt foreign to him. He wanted to make her feel better, to protect her, and to envelope her completely. He had wanted that for a long time. "Go up to bed, Hermione. You may think these are mere words, but things will be better in the morning."

He walked out of the room. If he didn't leave her right now, he would be forced to take her to bed himself, and he couldn't guarantee it would be her bed.

She continued to cry. She cried until the clock on the mantle chimed three times. Another hour had gone, another hour alone, another hour afraid, and another hour feeling useless and scared. She had to get out of here!

She ran out of the room. She ran as if her life depended on it. She ran to the front door, pulled on the doorknob, and the damn thing didn't budge one iota. She pulled her wand from her skirt and said every unlocking spell she had ever known, and nothing happened.

She ran to the solarium. It was a far distance away, and when she reached it she was out of breath. She tried to break some of the glass with her wand. Nothing happened. A room made totally of glass, yet the glass was indestructible! She threw a planter at one of the large windows. Nothing happened. She screamed at the top of her lungs.

She screamed, "Nothing happened!"

She sank to the ground and screamed again. Finally, she stood up, and ran to Lucius' study. It was across from the library. She rushed in the door and frantically went to the bay windows. She pulled an ottoman over to the windows, pulled back the heavy, velvet drapes, and examined the windows closely. They were average, everyday, run of the mill windows, with an antiquated sliding lock that went from the wood of the window to the sill. She jumped off the ottoman to land on the floor, rejoicing at her good luck.

She easily slid the bottom lock to the right. She almost gasped. Truly, it couldn't be this easy! She looked over her shoulder to make sure the door was still closed. She stood back up on the upholstered ottoman and tried to push the lock in the middle of the window out of the groove. It wouldn't move as easily as the one on the bottom.

Fine, she was a witch, she would use magic. She took her wand and tried to move it with magic. Still, nothing happened. Just then, the door opened. She looked over her shoulder, saw Lucius, and in her surprise she slipped and her hand went right through the glass, slicing her wrist with a large gash.

She cried out in anguish. She fell off the ottoman to the floor. Lucius rushed to her side.

"You stupid, stupid woman!" he said.

"You couldn't make these windows unbreakable, too?" she leveled, holding her bloodied wrist in her other hand. He bent next to her, and with the same amount of ease as he picked her up earlier, he lifted her from the ground and took her to sit on top of his desk.

She was still crying. Her wrist was bleeding copious amounts of blood. He waved his wand back and forth over her wrist, administering silent healing spells, even as he said words to soothe her. "Now, now, it's alright. It's okay. It's fine. It's stopped bleeding now."

He released her wrist, placing it in her lap. He looked down at his hand, crimson with her recently shed blood. The sight upset him more than it should. It sickened him in a way. He looked back at her wan expression and pallid face, and she grasped his robes in her hands and said, "I'm tired, Lucius."

"I'm tired as well, Hermione. I'm tired of your antics. You wouldn't have been able to get out of the windows, anyway, merely because you got the thing unlocked. There are wards and charms and enchantments to keep you here, just as many that are in place to keep others out. I knew immediately when you broached the threshold of this room. You need to face the fact that you have to stay here. You have no choice."

She still had his robes bunched in her hands. She looked up at him, tears falling still, and she asked. "Why? Why can't I just run away and hide? Why can't I just run away and die?" She dropped her head to his chest.

He cleaned her wrist and hands free of the drying blood. Then, he cleaned his hands with his wand, placed the wand by her leg, and then he stroked her hair several times. Finally, he held her tightly. "I won't let you run away and hide, or worse, wish to die. Furthermore, I find that I want to be truthful with you, though I've never had that inclination before now."

She looked up at him, waiting, anticipating.

He placed a hand under her chin, nudging it upwards more. "You aren't really released from prison. Your sentence was commuted, and you weren't pardoned. Potter, in all actuality, and as hard as it is to believe he would ever do anything wrong, or even that he would take that wand out of his bum long enough to do something wrong, helped you escape, in a way." He knew he was rambling, but it was hard for someone like him to tell the truth when he had spent a lifetime perfecting lies. He stopped to gage her reaction, and decided to continue.

She released his robes, but placed her hands on his arms. He said softly, "You see, the truth is, you weren't safe in prison. The person who killed Draco wants you dead as well. They always have. Potter pretty much knew from the beginning that you weren't guilty, and that you had an equal threat against you, but proving it was another thing, especially since there was so much evidence against you."

She straightened up, but remained on the desk. "Go on," she urged.

"Your old boyfriend even witnessed the supposed crime, as you recall. He swore under truth serum that you did it. There was other evidence, as you know, but what you didn't know at the time was that there was someone who wanted you dead as well. Potter uncovered this, and persuaded the Minister to sentence you to the detention center instead of Azkaban.

"The thing was he thought he would quickly find evidence of your innocence, and he assumed he would discover who was behind killing Draco and behind the threats against you. Although he searched hard, with help from me and others, the only discovery he made was that you were in more danger in jail, than out. That brings us here."

"I'm not really free?" she said sadly. If Lucius Malfoy had a heart, it would break at the sight of the dejected expression on her face.

"In one sense, you are, in the fact that you are no longer in that hellhole, but only myself, Potter, the Minister of Magic himself, as well as three others, know of this," he relayed.

She looked worried. Then she looked angry. "Wait a minute, does that mean that everyone assumes I escaped?"

"No," he said, with a long sigh. "To the vermin in the jail and to the public in general, they assume you have finally been taken to Azkaban. Someone matching your description was taken there by Potter this very night, and was placed in solitary confinement."

"Who?" she asked.

"Really?" he asked back, incredulously. "The thing that's most pressing on your massive mind is who did Potter get to play the part of Hermione Granger in prison?"

Then she did something he didn't expect. She began to laugh. She grasped his robes again, laughed, and said, "It's all so outlandish! There are so many things I want, and need, to know, yet I'm so tired, and frankly, right now, my wrist throbs where it went through the window, and hell, at least I'm not in jail." She laughed some more, but then stopped and said, "Do my parents still think I'm in jail?"

"Yes," he said solemnly.

"That's depressing. We should have just told everyone I died in prison. If someone was really after me, that would stop it," she said dolefully.

He smirked and said, "Now see, I finally really believe you are tired, because a Hermione Granger who is in her right mind would see the foibles of that theory. If everyone thought you died, then the real killer would no longer seek you out and we would never find them." Suddenly, his mood turned dark. He said, "Of course that didn't stop, well, never mind."

Looking back at her he quizzed, "Are you finally ready for bed?"

"Sure, whatever you want. Your bed or mine?" she said with a slight smile.

He looked shocked. She laughed outright and said, "Now THAT'S what they call humour, Lucius Malfoy. HA!" She jumped off the desk, and to her surprise he didn't move. She was right up against his body. He reached out and pulled her to him.

He raised an eyebrow again, placed his arms around her waist, and pulled her against him. Her eyes widened. He said, "Now, Hermione, what would you say if I said I wasn't in the mood for humour? What if I thought you were serious? What would you say if I had answered your question?" He leaned down slightly, she leaned back. He placed a hand on her cheek, pulled her closer, and then placed his lips upon hers. She clutched his robes again, tighter than before.

Her lips were soft and giving under his. Desire washed through him, around him, to her, and for the first time in ages he felt exultant and happy. She made a muffled noise in the back of her throat. He hardly moved his lips, he didn't press hard, but he left them on hers for a few more seconds, and then lifted them slowly.

He watched her eyelids open slowly. Did she even know the overwhelming power that she had over him? He slid his right hand up to her neck, to feel her pulse, and then moved it to the back of her head, to curl in her long hair. His left hand slid lower, on the curve of her back. Her shallow, raspy breaths told him that she was as overcome as he, and they had barely kissed and embraced.

What might happen if they DID share a bed? He inquired, "Well, do you want an answer to your question, or would you like to decide? Your bed or mine?"

"Since I'm not sure where my room is, I guess yours," she answered.


	4. Chapter 4 A Place to Remember

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 4: A Place to Remember**

Lucius eyed her suspiciously, then said, "Don't say things you don't mean. If I take you to bed, I might not ever let you go."

Hermione swallowed hard and tried not to think about the fact that she was pressed up against his chiseled chest, her nipples tingling from a long forgotten want. She tried hard to forget that this man was once her enemy, or that she had once feared him. Most of all, she tried not to think about the fact that he was Draco's father, because so help her, she wanted him. Also, she tried to forget about the implications of his words: _"I might not ever let you go."_

His hand went to her face, down her neck, to her shoulder, and then to the outside of her blouse, round to her breast. His thumb went across the outline of her nipple, and even through her blouse and bra the action radiated pleasure and made her body sing with a satisfaction that she had long forgotten.

"Why – Why would you want me, Lucius?" she asked.

He looked up from his ministrations and smiled. "What an asinine question. Why wouldn't I want you, Hermione?"

She pushed at his hands, held them in hers, and said, "Because I've lost fifteen pounds. I know I don't look very good. I'm haggard and worn out. I'm a Mudblood and I was once engaged to your son."

"Ah, guilt. It rears its ugly head already and so now we must talk to death a subject that I have never felt a desire to speak of. All simply to allay your feelings of guilt." He moved his hands easily from hers and said, "Go on to bed, Hermione Granger. I'm not in the mood for you any longer." He started to walk toward the door.

"Well I'm sorry if I want to know the reason why!" she harped.

"NO!" he snapped back, once more in front of her. "I told you why! I want you! It's as simple as that, yet you still want to beat it to death! You still love my son, I understand, and if you can't give yourself to me because of that reason, I understand! Do you think I don't still love him? Do you think this doesn't cause me a certain degree of guilt? I know you still love him, Hermione!"

Lucius had taken her shoulders and had begun to shake her. When he was through yelling, he stopped. She pushed him away, as hard as she could, and pointed her finger at him and said, "Yes, I feel guilt, but that shows you how much you know, Malfoy! I don't feel guilt because I still love your son! I haven't loved you son for years! I didn't even still love him when I agreed to marry him! I stopped loving him long before that! That's my guilt!" She began to cry. She hit him hard on the chest, with first one fist and then the other. "That's my guilt! I loved him as a human being, as a friend, but not as a woman should love the man she was going to marry, and that's what I have to live with for the rest of my life! If only I had had the courage to tell him the wedding was off, maybe he wouldn't have been in that room, getting ready for the stupid farce, and maybe he wouldn't have been killed!

"That's my guilt! I will pay for it, for the rest of my life!" She ran down the hall, up the stairs, found the room he had made up for her, slammed the door, and went to bed.

He stayed behind and sighed. Now he felt guilty and he didn't know why.

Sleep continued to elude her, even as the sun began to streak in the windows. She turned over in the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. She couldn't believe that she had admitted to Lucius that she had fallen out of love with Draco! How could she have told his father that? She hadn't admitted that to anyone. The only person who knew that was Draco, and he was dead. Lucius must hate her now. No doubt, he was planning on getting rid of her today. Where would she go? Who would want her now?

If only Lucius knew that Draco hadn't really wanted to marry her either. Draco had been such an unhappy, tortured soul for so long. That was the main reason she was at first attracted to him, because she felt that she could fix him. She thought he needed her, and she had always needed to be needed. That was part of his appeal in the beginning, but he was too broken, too hurt, too sad and depressed. They thought they loved each other, but really, besides deep affection, and a loving friendship, and a shared guilt at a shared, tortured childhood, they didn't have much else.

They didn't have much of a love life. They had sex very rarely in the years that they were together. Again, that was something she blamed herself for, even though it wasn't anyone's fault. When he offhandedly suggested one day that perhaps if they got married he would finally be happy, and he would be able to keep her safe, she agreed. She felt she 'owed' it to him. She wanted him to be happy. She wanted to be safe. She wanted to make him happy and keep him safe as well.

Really, Lucius must have known that Draco and Hermione had more of a friendship than a passionate love for each other. Surely Draco had told him. She knew he was close to his father, and she knew that Harry knew. She even felt that perhaps Draco wanted to marry her to protect her, because they had both begun to get threatening letters and disturbing packages from someone called, '_The Messenger'_.

The Aurors couldn't tell who they were from, only that they seemed to be from either a Death Eater sympathizer or a fanatic of some type. The theory was that perhaps these posts were from someone who had an ax to grind with either Hermione or Draco or both.

Draco's letters always called him a coward and a traitor. They said that he didn't have the nerve to kill Dumbledore, that he was a stain to all purebloods because of his association with Hermione, and that he should have served a longer sentence in jail. The sentiments in the letters were full of irony. Some said he wasn't a good enough Death Eater, others said he was no good because he was once a Death Eater.

The warped beliefs in the letters to Hermione were much the same. Some said she was nothing but a Mudblood whore, who sullied all purebloods, and some criticized her for going against the light-side. The person was a sanctimonious sycophant, and downright schizophrenic. The letters both disturbed and overwhelmed Draco and he felt he was incompetent in his ability to protect Hermione. He was equally frustrated at the ineptitude on the part of the Aurors to protect either of them.

Hermione tried to ignore the threats for the most part. She even told Draco that if he wanted, they could stop seeing each other, and perhaps the letters would stop. She felt that was one of the reasons he wanted to KEEP seeing her…because of the letters. Draco Malfoy never liked someone to tell _him_ what to do.

His father hired men to try to find out who was behind the letters, especially when the threats began to get ugly. Hermione and Draco would come home to their house destroyed, and with obscene messages written on the wall. They would find disturbing gifts, or things that were important to them damaged beyond repair. No mattered how many times they changed their wards, the person always managed to get past them and into their house.

Hermione's mother's cat was killed and a note was pinned to the collar saying it was a gift for Hermione from _The Messenger._

One day Draco was late for work, (Hermione had already left) and when he went outside their house he saw what he assumed was a dead 'Hermione' hanging from a tree. It was merely an effigy, but the note on it said next time it would really be her, and it would be Draco's fault. Again, it was signed, _The Messenger._

Hermione knew that Draco's solution to make it all stop was to marry her, and move her to the Manor. He said he had talked it over with his father. Hermione didn't agree, but Draco seemed so desperate. When she assured him that she would be alright by herself if he wanted to go back home, he said he couldn't stand the thought of her being alone. He said he would kill himself if something bad happened to her because of him.

He used to cry at night, from the guilt he felt from things that happened to all of them when they were young. Hermione knew his mental health was fragile. What might he really do if something should happen to her, and he perceived it to be his fault? So she agreed to his plan: she said she would marry him and move to the Manor. What else could she do?

He wanted to marry her to protect her. Little did he know that marrying her would be the death of him, and that now, it might also be the death of her?

Hermione continued to mull these things over in her mind that morning, until her thoughts became confused and muddled. She was tired, in many ways. She was angry. She had a rage, deep inside, and no way to express it. Plus, she had sincerely wanted Lucius earlier, but she had acted otherwise.

Nevermind. Everything would be okay.

It was something she used to tell herself over and over and over again when Draco was depressed, and when they were being threatened, and again when she was in prison. She often thought if she said it enough, it would come true. She repeated it to herself now.

"It will be okay, it will be okay."

She turned to her side. Her body thrummed with unwashed desire for Lucius. It was something she had felt long before Draco had died. In her mind, it was merely another reason for her to feel culpability.

He was still such an attractive man. He emitted power and sensuality. The thought of being here with him when Draco was still alive scared her a bit, though she knew Draco would have acted as a buffer. Now, the thought of being here with him scared her to death. The desire she felt for him both frightened and thrilled her. THAT was the reason she pushed him away earlier.

It wasn't so much because of guilt. It was because of fear; fear that if she gave in to her want, he would control her forever and she would be just as trapped by him as she had been trapped by Draco. He even said it himself. He said he might never let her go, and she would never be able to leave him, just as she could never have left Draco if he hadn't died.

Poor Draco. She started to cry. She didn't understand anything anymore.

She couldn't switch off her mind, and the morning continued to stretch out before her. She stayed in bed, though her muscles screamed at her to stretch them, her eyelids felt like they had sand behind them, and she ached with a desire that was never to be fully nourished.

Finally, she must have fallen asleep. When she woke it was dark outside, and there was a tray with food by her bed. She ate quickly and then went to draw a bath. There was a huge green marble tub in the middle of the bathroom, sunken into the floor. It looked unbelievably inviting. She brushed her teeth, used the toilet, lit every candle she could find in her suite, placed them all around the tub, and after the tub filled almost to the rim, she allowed herself to sink into the water.

Ah, bliss.

The only light in the room was from a few candles she left burning around the room. The light flickered and danced along the wall, and after she washed she spent many long moments fascinated by the dancing shadows. She had to warm the water twice, but she didn't want to get out of the tub, even though the candles had practically burned themselves out.

Her eyes ached. She willed herself not to cry again. She felt sleepy once more, although how she could sleep again was a surprise even to her. She didn't know what time it was. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and decided to rest them just until the last candle went out. When the last candle guttered, then would she get out of the water and dress herself.

That was how Lucius found her.

He knew she hadn't slept last night. He barely slept. He figured she finally went to sleep about noon. It was now after six-thirty in the evening. He was pleased that she had eaten the food on the tray. She was much too thin in his opinion.

Potter had arrived earlier. There was no news from anyone about anything. That was a blessing and a curse. He failed to tell Potter about what had occurred, (almost occurred?) last night. Harry had just left when Lucius let himself into her suite.

She looked so young and peaceful floating in the water. Her hair was wet and curled around her shoulders. Her breasts were full, and floated high on top of the water. He sat on the edge of the tub and felt the water. It was cold. He warmed it with his wand.

Then, he did something he shouldn't have, but frankly, he had never had the aspiration to do the things that he should. He placed his wand next to her forehead and said a silent spell. He needed to see into her thoughts. If she was awake, she would be too strong, and would repel him. Asleep, she was no match for him.

He saw all her worries. All her fears. Every worry and fear she had thought of over the last night and day. Poor thing. She was full of remorse, unnecessarily so. He placed his wand on the side of the tub and stroked her forehead, the wet hair clinging to her skin as he did.

Didn't she know that Draco was always an open book to him? He knew that his son was tortured, sad, depressed, and perhaps even mentally ill. He knew that Draco thought of Hermione more as an anchor, a lifeline, and a best friend, than a lover or a wife. He knew that Draco felt extreme remorse and responsibility for the pain he had put her through for most of her life. He had even taken it upon himself to shoulder the blame for things that had happened to her that were beyond Draco's control, such as the torture she endure by Bellatrix. Draco even felt responsible for the deprivations and trauma that had happened the year she had searched for Horcruxes with Potter and Weasley.

Didn't she know that Lucius knew that she too felt guilty, and sad, and that she stayed with Draco out of a sense of obligation, more than out of love? Didn't she know that it was time to put away those thoughts, those feelings, that guilt, and live her life for herself?

She was still young. She was beautiful. She was desirable, and Lucius wanted her very much, and had, for so very long. He wouldn't let anyone or anything hurt her. The bastard had already taken his son, but he would allow no one would take her, too.

Hermione opened her eyes. She felt him sitting next to her before she saw him. She looked up at him and tried to smile.

"I know," was all he said.

"What do you know?"

"I know you're in pain, and you feel guilty, but it's not necessary. Let it wash away." He moved his hand back and forth in the tub. Hermione knew she should feel some degree of embarrassment since she was naked, but instead, she felt anger. How dare he presume to know what she felt?

She sat upright and said, "You don't know what I feel!"

"Ah, there's where you're wrong, my love. I used Legilimency on you while you were sleeping, so I could see what you were thinking of during the night and most of the morning. Although really, it showed me nothing I didn't already know. My son and I were very close, Hermione. He told me everything, and what he didn't tell me, I found out the same way I just found out things from you. You have no reason to feel any responsibility for the pain Draco felt during life, or for his death. You know that, don't you?"

She wanted to say something like, 'How dare you?'

She should feel outraged and indignant, or at least highly annoyed. Instead, she felt relieved. Did he mean that he saw, 'everything?' Did he see how much she wanted him? She swallowed hard and said, "Did you see everything?"

"Well, everything that worried you last night and this morning," he replied. "Your worries, your fears, your wants, and yes, I saw your desire." He looked deeply into her eyes and his hand went from the water, found one bare breast, and he rubbed her nipple with his thumb, the water making it slick and smooth, and soon, erect.

"What about you, Lucius. What do you want? What are your desires?" Her head lolled back and forth against the side of the tub and she let out a moan as his hand continued to play idly with her nipple.

"Do you really seek to know my wants and desires? Why not live for yourself for a change, Hermione?" he asked. "However, if it's reassurance that you need, or a promise, I can do that. I can safely say that I'm going to keep you here with me, and you'll be safe, and no one will ever take you away from me."

He turned slightly on the side of the tub and his hands went to her waist. He pulled her out of the water. She trembled, and didn't understand what any of this meant, but she no longer cared to analyze it. She merely wanted to live, for herself. She was no longer afraid of living.

He picked up her nude body, carried her out of the tub, and stood over the bed, still holding her in his arms. "Nothing is going to stop us this time, Hermione Granger, do you understand. Nothing."

She understood completely.


	5. Chapter 5 A Place to Love

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 5: A Place to Love:**

Lucius turned slightly on the side of the bathtub and his hands went to Hermione's waist to pull her out of the water. She trembled. She wanted him, and it was apparent that he wanted her, and though she didn't understand what any of this meant, she no longer cared to scrutinize it. She merely wanted to live for herself. She was no longer afraid of living. She was only afraid of ceasing to exist.

He picked up her nude body, carried her out of the tub, and stood over the bed with her still in his arms. "Nothing is going to stop us this time, Hermione Granger, do you understand. Nothing." He placed her on the bed.

She nodded in complete understanding, afraid if she spoke she might protest, and she really didn't want to protest. A number of compelling arguments came to the front of her mind, but she resisted them, pushed them far, far away. The scandal alone would be enough to make a normal woman, a woman who was more prosaic than Hermione was, run away and hide. But what did she have to fear? She was already drowning in scandal, guilt and shame, besides, she wanted this. She wanted him.

His hand touched her face, her chin, his knee on the bed beside her nude body. His scent, in fact, his entire being, was more masculine than she could imagine, and when he leaned down to kiss her, she was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed first by his smell, then his warmth, and lastly by the feel of his lips upon hers.

His lips touched hers quickly, fleetingly, only to stop as he took the time to say, "This is right, Hermione."

She wasn't arguing that point so he had hardly needed to state it.

His drew off his robes and his shirt, to stand before her, wearing only his trousers. She reached up and let her fingertips glide slowly down his chest, touching one nipple, going over his ribs, and stopping on his stomach. He was such a beautiful man. Beautiful was the right adjective to describe the way she thought he looked, so she said as much.

"I think you're beautiful," she said in a soft whisper, her hand moving from his body to lie limply at her side. He smiled at how tentative she seemed. He leaned down and let his lips touch hers again, his hands not touching her naked body, not yet.

His kiss was firm and wanting. He sat beside her, his hands cradled her head, and he continued to kiss her, moving his lips on top of hers, controlling her, embarking on a journey of discovery, acknowledgement, and general pleasure.

Still, his lips moved against hers, and she began to move hers in return. Her hands came up to his neck, pulled him closer, pleasure cascading down her body, from her head to her toes. He embarked upon his ravishment with her mouth, but his hands began to move down to her breasts, priming her for things to come.

He stood once more and removed the rest of his clothing. She didn't look away. He smiled at her courage. He asked, "Do you trust me?"

She swallowed before she nodded yes. He smiled and said, "How odd." He meant that, too. He wanted her to trust him, and he knew in his heart that he wouldn't hurt her, but still, if anyone on the outside would see this situation, they would label her a fool right about now. That was one more thing that appealed to him…her courage.

He sat beside her, reached for her damp hair to curl one long tendril around his finger. "Your hair is beautiful. I can't wait for it to drape across my body as we make love."

"Why wait?" she asked, her voice hoarse, but full of conviction.

"I'm going to ask you a question first," he said. "The answer will decide if I continue."

She took a deep breath in and closed her eyes for a second, opened them at the same time that she asked, "What?"

"Do you think you could ever come to honestly care for me?" He felt like an old fool asking such questions at a time like this, but he needed to know.

"I already care for you," she answered.

"And I for you," he returned. It wasn't an 'I love you,' but who needed that?

Then she said something that both shocked him and endeared her to him forever. She said, "Thank you, Lucius. I need this."

He laid beside her, pressed his cheek against hers, then against her ear, soaking in her smell, her life essence. His lips brushed against her neck, her pulse. "You smell so sweet. Sweet enough to eat." He nibbled at her neck to show her just how sweet. Her hands settled on his shoulders and she moaned.

That moan was his undoing.

He continued to kiss her neck, moved to her jaw, chin, and her cheek. Finally, his mouth slanted against hers again, his tongue sank deep inside, and his arms went around her to press her closer. Every want and need that she had suppressed for so long, sprang to the surface and overwhelmed her. She felt flooded, mind and body with desire and she almost begged him to stop, even though every fiber of her being wanted him to continue.

His tongue was pushing against the roof of her mouth, tangling with hers, hands moving down her neck to her breasts, palms rough on her sensitive skin. She clung to him fervently, her hands in his long hair.

Her head began to spin. This wasn't real. This wasn't happening, yet it was. When his mouth moved from her mouth to her breasts she cried out. He didn't stop or miss a beat. Suckling lightly on one nipple, he then used his teeth to skim the tip, tormenting her until her hips began to move, her head fell back, and her hands pressed his head closer. She began to moan.

Then he did it all over again on the other breast.

He made his tongue flat and moved it back and forth against the second nipple, until it was so erect that it was almost painful. Her back arched and he moved a leg between hers. She felt his arousal on her leg. He felt the warm, wetness of her arousal on his thigh.

Unable to lay idle, she reached down for him and moved one hand around his thick length. Up and down, around the tip, until he lifted his head from her breast, and he too cried out. He looked down at her and smiled. He was hard and ready. He was bigger than she imagined, and she wanted him inside her so badly that it hurt. She had forgotten what this type of desire felt like. Before, it had seemed like some long forgotten dream, something that used to be, but never would be again.

Finally, it was real, and she wasn't sure she could handle it. He began to kiss her again, his hands moving hers from between his legs, or else things would be over before they had begun. He laced her fingers in his, and kissed her with more zeal than before. He took both her hands in one of his, moved his hand down to her center, felt her wetness, her want, her need, and said, "I want you now. Are you sure? You seem ready for me, but are you sure?"

"I want you so much," she returned, and then she surprised herself as she began to cry. He kissed away the tears, his hand moving lightly on top of her, his fingers going inside her. The movement was enough to almost bring her to orgasm. She fought to remove her hands from his, and brought one of hers back down to him, going around him, the thumb rubbing the tip.

He moaned against her shoulder. Then, he adjusted his hips and moved so that he glided right inside her. Another moan escaped him, and she cried out in pleasure at the same time. He lifted his upper body on his elbows. Her hands went to his back. She felt the tension, the muscles, and the hard body.

He didn't move for the longest time. He merely filled her. She felt full, yet unsatisfied. He looked down upon her and said, "You're mine now, Hermione Granger. You belong to me. I would kill any man who would dare to try to take you from me."

"I belong to myself, not you. Now, enough talking," she said through clenched teeth. In actuality, she liked the possessive side of him, though she would never admit it to anyone.

He laughed and said, "Too bad there aren't two of you. If there were, one could belong to me, and one could belong to you." They stared into each others eyes, clung to each other, and moved in sync with each other, back and forth, up and down, around and around, fast, slow, with measured urgency. She felt as if she was falling over an edge. It was bordering on pain, mingling with desire and pleasure. She began to cry again, a look of shock on her face when she climaxed.

As the shudder of her orgasm hit her body, he held on, until the end, and then, only then, did he give into his own need. When it was over, the last tiny thread of release gone, he collapsed beside her, immediately pulling her against him. He held her as she continued to cry.

He didn't ask her why she cried. He didn't tell her to stop. He didn't tell her it would be okay. He stroked her back, her hair, her face. He kissed her. He wanted to say something, but words seemed so inadequate right now. Besides, this was Hermione Granger. She was bound to say something sooner or later.

Sometime later, he awoke and looked at the old wind up clock on the bedside table. It was night again. They had both slept. He wanted to make love to her again, but he knew he should let her sleep some more. He threaded one hand through her curls as she lay with her head on his chest. He picked up one of her hands with his other hand, noticing the contrast in the size and shape in comparison with his own. He brought it to his mouth and kissed it.

The smile that came to his face was genuine. It was brought about by the absurdity of the fact that only a few years ago he would have thought that this woman was beneath him and now he wanted to have her 'beneath' him while they made love. How odd.

It started two years prior when Draco had first started seeing her. At first, it had outraged Lucius, who had lost his wife while serving his prison sentence, that his only son was dating the queen of the Mudbloods.

He tried everything to make his son see reason. He threatened him… "You'll lose you're inheritance," and "You'll be the laughing stock of our kind." He tried to play on his sympathies… "How could you do this to me?" and "Didn't your mother and I raise you better?" He even tried to bring up his rearing and prejudices… "She's a mudblood son, and below you," and "She's Harry Potter's best friend, and therefore, your enemy."

Still, nothing swayed Draco from seeing her. In fact, if anything, it only made Draco more determined. Now Lucius was glad that his son had been so headstrong.

If Lucius wanted to be honest, at least with himself, he would have to admit that from the first moment Draco had told him he was dating Hermione Granger, the first primary emotion Lucius felt, the basic emotion, the biggest one, was JEALOUSY!

It hurt him to admit it, but he had felt jealous of his own son.

Then Draco started to bring her around for dinners and other things. She had been such a little bitch in the beginning, but just as sexy as hell. He had wanted her even more, which made Lucius hate her even more. He looked down at her now and his chest rumbled in silent laughter at _that_ thought.

She was an antagonist from the beginning. Perhaps the worthiest adversary Lucius had come across in decades. She argued with Lucius about everything, vexed him to no end, disagreed with him about everything.

If Lucius had said something was white she would have said it was black just to irk him. If he had said it was big, she would have said it was small. If he'd claimed it was up, she would have argued it was down. He found himself longing for the moments when he could see her, fight with her, look at her, be near her. She had awakened not only a basic stimulus in his brain for arguing and fighting, but an even more basic stimuli called sexual awareness. Every time he saw her a small frisson of passion and desire passed between them intermingled with equal parts annoyance and irritation.

Draco admitted to his father that he was scared for her and for himself when the threats began. That was when Lucius used Leglimency on his son and knew without a shadow of a doubt that while his son loved Hermione, he wasn't in love with her. She was important in his life, and he loved her, but not as a man should love a woman – yet, he needed her, and because of that, Lucius would never have acted on his desires because his son needed Hermione. Draco had been so unhappy and Hermione seemed to fill a small piece of the larger void that was his son's life. Lucius knew it wasn't truly a romantic love. It had been more a 'need' than an 'ardent love'. She was his son's best friend. She cared deeply for him. She had been the only thing keeping his son sane and reasonable happy.

Lucius had long suspected that Hermione had felt the same, and now he knew for sure. His son was gone, and it was too late to help him, but it wasn't too late to help her. He began to stroke her back, his mind still idly thinking of ways to help her. He was also contemplating the many ways in which they could make love again.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"I didn't know you were awake," he said as an alternative to answering.

"I just woke. Now, what are you thinking?" she asked anew.

"The state of the weather," he joked. She looked up at him, and he smiled at her. "Unseasonably cold weather we're having, isn't it, pet?"

She eyed him suspiciously and said, "Do you want to know what I'm thinking?"

"Are you thinking how appalled you are that the weather has been so cold lately?" he asked with a smirk.

She hit his chest lightly.

"Try again." She sat up, pulling the sheet with her so that it was under her breasts. She leaned her back against the headboard.

He sat beside her, the covers on his side pooling around his waist. "Then surely you're thinking about what a splendid lover I am. You're thinking that you want to give it another go already, but you assume, with some prejudice, that I'm too old to go again so soon. How dare you."

She laughed. "You're funny, but no, I mean, well, perhaps I wouldn't mind going again, but something you said before we made love has me thinking. You said that it was too bad that there wasn't two of me."

He rolled his eyes. "I was not serious. I am too old for that. I can barely stand one of you."

She frowned and hit his chest. "Just listen to me. The idea of another me, combined with what Harry told us, is bothering me with no hope of relief. Harry said that they took someone to Azkaban; someone whom everyone thinks is me, right? Who was it?"

"I don't know and I don't care," he said in that haughty tone of his.

"Lucius!" she chastised.

"I'm being truthful. I do not care," he said back.

"Fine, but do you know how they accomplished it?" she asked. "Did they use Polyjuice potion? What? What happened to that person after the Polyjuice potion wore off?"

"Again, I have to reiterate, and I hope you won't hit me this time, I don't know, and I don't care," he repeated, one eyebrow in the air.

She hit his chest again, harder still.

"Listen woman, stop hitting me!"

"Woman!" she laughed.

"Fine, I care," he mocked. "But don't you think those are questions for Potter?"

"I know they are, I'm merely using you as a sounding board for my questions," she revealed.

"More like a punching bag," he mumbled.

Ignoring him, she said, "Here's my theory, and if I say it in the form of a question, you don't need to answer. What if Ron really did see _me_ murder Draco? He claimed under Veritaserum that he saw me use the death curse on Draco. Then he said that he ran to get help, and upon returning to the room, he saw me cradling Draco in my arms. I still maintain that the only time Ron saw me, was when I was holding Draco. I heard Ron scream for help, and only then did I run into the room where Draco had been getting dressed for the wedding. That was when I saw him on the floor."

"What if the first Hermione wasn't really me, but the second one was. I mean, I know the second one was, because I know I really ran in after Draco was killed. We've been thinking of this all wrong. We've been thinking of conspiracy theories, and dark curses, or illusion spells, or assuming Ron was in on everything, but Ron was broken up about his testimony. He didn't want to tell them what he saw. He didn't want me to go prison."

Lucius stared at her for a long time, and then said, "Polyjuice potion?"

"Yes, basic, simple, polyjuice potion. I made it when I was child."

"Of course you did," Lucius said, almost proud. "If we assume the killer is the same person who was sending you and Draco all the threatening messages for the year before Draco died, then that means the culprit is a man. A person can't change gender under Polyjuice potion. Explain that."

Hermione thought for a moment and said, "I don't think that I can, and I agree with you that the 'The Messenger' is probably a man, but maybe he had an accomplice. Tell me, Lucius, who knows I'm on the outside."

"Why does that matter? You surely don't suspect any of them, do you?" He reached over and brought his fingertips down her face.

"Please, tell me."

"Well, there's Potter, and unfortunately, he trusted Weasley enough to tell him. There's Draco's former best friend, Theo Nott, whom I would trust with MY life, and Adrian Pucey, who works for me. Oh, and the Minister of Magic."

"The Minister of Magic?" Hermione asked, somewhat shocked.

"Of course. Potter claims he couldn't have orchestrated this without telling him, and he's very sympathetic to your cause. He's long been a supporter of your innocence, you know that."

Hermione drew her knees up to her chest, placed her cheek on her knees and closed her eyes. "I'm not so sure about that," she answered. "I'm not so sure."


	6. Chapter 6 A Place to Deceive

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 6: A Place to Deceive:**

Another morning broke through the windows of the guest suite where Hermione and Lucius had spent yet another wonderful night together. She had been at his home for two weeks now, and they spent every night together here in this room. They didn't make love every night. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they slept, and sometimes they merely held each other. It was how it was supposed to be, in Lucius' mind. He couldn't imagine waking up without her in his arms. Though it had only been a fortnight, it seemed like forever, and he didn't want it any other way.

He knew she was restless. With each day that passed she grew more impatient. She wanted to find Draco's killer, she wanted her freedom, and as she told Lucius on more than one occasion, she wanted her life to begin. She told him that she felt her life at that moment was a lie, and no matter what, she had 'no place in her life for lying'. She told him that she needed to reclaim her 'place' in the world. He didn't like how that sounded, but he would acknowledge it, no matter where her place might be.

Funny, Lucius felt as if his life had just begun again with her, and yet here she was, waiting for hers to start. He felt her place was by his side, and she was still looking for her rightful place. The irony smacked him in the face especially hard that morning.

After he awoke, and before his shower, he found another Owl that she had written and had not yet sent. An Owl to Harry Potter. Passages from the missive stood out in his mind even as he looked down at the woman that he felt he might love. 'Have you discovered who sent the original letters yet?' and 'I want this all to end'. Lucius would try not to let that letter, and the others that he knew she had written before, feel personal toward him. It was just her way.

He knew she was making plans, on her own, without Potter. Although it generally went against Lucius' underhanded nature, he hadn't yet invaded her privacy to find out exactly what she had written in most of the letters. He, therefore, didn't know exactly what she had planned. No, the only thing he had done so far was to intercept every single Owl she had sent, along with the ones that Potter had written to her. It wasn't the most honourable way to keep her safe, and she would be angry when she found out, but he never regretted anything he did, and he would not start now. His only goal was to keep her safe…well, and perhaps to keep her here with him a while longer. Because if he knew her, and he did, she was planning something, and that something would end with her leaving him.

Something was going to happen very soon to end this sweet intermission. This gentle interlude that had given him reprieve from his suffering and loneliness. Something shockingly explosive would happen that would ruin the simple mundane life that Lucius was becoming so fond of, here with her.

It was inevitable. She wanted to get on with her life. Lucius felt as if his life finally had a purpose, while she still felt lost and forlorn. He didn't know what was more important…his selfish need for self-satisfying happiness, or his new, almost unwelcome, need to make her happy?

Lucius walked from the bathroom, after taking a shower, and he looked down at the beautiful woman before him. He reached out for her, but then pulled back.

They had made love countless times over the last two weeks. He was a bit sore, actually, though he would never admit that to her. He sat on the bed beside her, the mattress sagging under his weight and he continued to watch her sleep. She looked so untouched and innocent. How deceptive was that? She had almost never been untouched and innocent. Almost from the start of her introduction into the magical world she had been exposed to the most vile, brutal things their world could offer, sometimes from his hand, and yet she was still unspoiled. He wouldn't be the one to spoil her now. He wanted that for her, at least.

He placed his fingertips on the top of her hand, and then placed her hand to his mouth, where he planted small kisses on the top and along the wrist. He continued to look at her face, her eyes still closed, so he concentrated exclusively on these kisses: One on the inside of her wrist, one on the top of her hand, one by her thumb. He looked at her hand briefly, and then enclosed her hand inside his.

He listened to her breathing, which coincided with his, and as he decided to see if she was still sleeping, or if it was a ruse. She was a former Gryffindor, and though they were usually holier than thou, they were masterful liars when need be and could often give Slytherins a run for their money in the lying department. He touched her face, neck, collarbone, all with surprising gentleness and she didn't move a muscle. Instead, her breathing became slower and shallower, as his touch became slower and more premeditated.

Watching her closed eyes, he reached for her face. Still holding her hand with one hand, he touched her eyelids with the other. His hand moved from her face, down her arm, in one fluid movement. He brought it back up the same path, and ended at her chin, which he tilted upward slightly so he could have better contact with her mouth. Then he leaned over and kissed her lips with what was unquestionably the gentlest kiss he could muster, so as not to wake her.

He brought his hand up and stroked her hair. He wanted to give her so much, because she deserved so much. He hadn't always felt that way, but he did now. He leaned over again to rain small kisses over her face. His resolve to leave her sleeping was melting away, shattering before him like a piece of handspun glass. Though he was often seen as a ruthless and selfish man, he was always a kind and gentle lover. He was to his precious wife, when she was alive, and he would be to this woman, while she was with him, even if it was only for two weeks.

An irrational thought tore at his gut. What if she had to leave again? What if someone took her from him? He wanted her now and always, and he couldn't let her go. Not ever.

He let go of her hand and stood to leave. He knew what he had to do. He took a quick chance to look back at her before he closed the door – she continued to sleep.

When she was once more alone, she opened her eyes and then wept.

Midmorning, after she showered, dressed, and wrote a letter to Harry, she started roaming the hallways of the Manor, looking for Lucius. She finally found him in a long abandoned wing, on the very top floor, which faced the southern side of his property. She looked in two rooms before finding him in the third. He was sitting at a desk, in a mostly dark room, sorting through papers of some kind.

"Lucius, may I speak with you?" she asked timidly.

He didn't look up from whatever it was he was reading. Instead, he motioned her forward with his hand. When she reached his side, he grabbed one of her hands in his, held it, and continued to read. She let him read, but she picked up a piece of parchment that he had already discarded on the top of the desk. She examined it closely.

"Lucius?" she asked, looking at this one piece of parchment, both sides. "What is this?"

"Hush," he scolded, though he held a smirk in check. Any moment now he would expect a…

"Don't hush me," she demanded.

He smiled, placed the piece of parchment in front of him back on the desk and pulled her down to his lap. "I fully expected your reprimand two seconds before you issued it. You're slacking, old girl."

"Ha…old, funny, from you," she joked. "What is this?" She picked up the piece he dropped and read it. He knew that it would only take a moment for her to answer her own question.

"These are some sort of letters to Draco? Where did you get these?" she asked when she finished reading. She kept the parchment in her hand and knelt on the floor beside him, to riffle through a crate that had similar pieces of parchments, as well as other things, inside it.

"You didn't know about these, did you?" Lucius asked. "Draco never told you that he was plagued with these strange notes throughout school?"

She shook her head slowly. "Why wouldn't Draco have told me about these?"

He shrugged, though she didn't look up, so she didn't see it.

"When did these come to him?"

"They started when he was in school, and continued well into the following years. I think they stopped after you two started dating, or perhaps he just learned to hide things better. He always hid things. He learned that from me," Lucius replied. He bent down and picked a book out of the crate. When he opened it, another piece of parchment came flying out.

Hermione caught it before it hit the floor. She sat, cross legged, before him and continued to read. She glanced up at him and said, "This one is from our sixth year at Hogwarts. I mean, he was going through a personal hell that year, and he had these letters arriving to him on top of it? No wonder he became unglued that year. Why didn't he ever tell me about these?"

She put that sheet down and drew out another old school text. Inside the front cover were three more pieces of parchments, two folded in half, one in quarters. She unfolded them all carefully, pressing out the folds against her legs, and then she leaned against the back Lucius' legs and read aloud. He place a hand gently on her hair as she did.

She read: "Draco, why do you continue to ignore me? I tell you that I need you, that I love you and that I want you, almost constantly, yet you do nothing about it. You don't even seem to know I'm alive. You have no time for me. You have no time for any of your real friends. You're so obsessed with your mission from the Dark Lord that you've let everything else fall to the wayside."

"And I saw you looking at her again, looking at all of them, again. I tell you, it better stop if you know what's good for you. You think she's your salvation? She'll be your damnation."

She refolded the letter and said, "It's not signed. Are any of them signed?" To answer her own question, she looked back in the box and examined more of the letters and notes. "None of them are signed. Are these an early precursor to the letters we both received from The Messenger, do you think?" She moved away from his legs, but remained on the floor and looked up at him.

Again, with an inelegant shrug, Lucius answered, "These were examined by the Aurors. Do you think I wouldn't have revealed these to them? Don't you know I never would have held back evidence if I thought it was pertinent? The script or handwriting rather, doesn't match."

"Did he ever know who they were from? There must be over a hundred notes, letters, sick love poems, and scraps of nonsense here. Why did he save them? What does this mean? Will it help us?" Hermione got to her knees and gathered the parchments he was previously reading to her and carried everything, crate included, to a small divan by the window and she started to read.

Lucius watched her for a while. She seemed so animated. Some of the things she read shocked her. She snorted and laughed at a few other things, which brought a smile to his face. A few times she made soft comments. Finally, she looked up at him and asked, "Did he ever know who sent these?"

"No. You're very smart. Haven't you guessed yet?" Lucius asked.

"Yes, I think I have, but I don't know if Draco would have come to the same conclusion, and I don't think you would come to the same conclusion that I've come to, either." She placed everything back in the box. "Did Harry ever see these?"

"I have no idea the workings of the Office of the Aurors. He was the Auror who investigated my son's death, and he allowed his best friend to go to prison for over a year, so even if he did see these, he must not have felt they were important," Lucius dismissed, though he didn't believe that for an instant.

She stood up, indignant. "Of course they're important! For one thing, they started our third year at Hogwarts and continued into our seventh, which is highly important. It was someone who went to school with us, perhaps in our year. This person apparently was able to give Draco notes and letters freely, which meant they were probably in Slytherin, but if not, it meant they had free reign of Hogwarts! It was someone who had access to Draco during our seventh year, when Harry, Ron and I weren't around."

She started to pace. "They wrote in a few of his textbooks, which may mean they were in some classes with us. Some of these messages are threatening, Lucius! Some seem innocent! Even if the handwriting doesn't match, the tone and intent of the notes do. Sure, these early letters might be innocuous enough, but people who start out with innocent, victimless crimes, often exacerbate to more violent crimes!"

"We can't even say for sure that these were sent by a female, because they are veiled heavily with gender baseless hyperbole. They could be written by a girl who had a sick obsession with him because she fancied she loved him, or a boy who was obsessed with him because he was jealous of him! It could even be a boy who was in love with him!

"They say they love him, but hate him. They admire what he's doing for the Dark Lord, but they don't think he could ever be a true Death Eater. They even say things about Harry, Ron and I, that almost seem as if this person was already jealous of Draco and us, even though back then, there was no 'us' as in Draco and I. Draco hated us back then!"

"But hate is a strong emotion," Harry Potter said from the doorway.

"I wondered when you would let her know you were there, Potter," Lucius drawled. "It's rude to listen from the doorway, but then again, you were never proficient at the social graces."

"As if I need lessons in comportment from you. What genteel manners would you find lacking in me, Lucius? Don't I torture and maim Mudbloods with enough grace for you?" Harry spat.

"ENOUGH! Both of you!" Hermione said. "Harry, I was beginning to think you were never coming back. Haven't you received any of my Owls?"

"No, actually, I haven't," he answered honestly.

She seemed shocked. "But I've sent almost one a day!"

"The only Owl I've received is the one I got this morning from Malfoy over there. He wanted me to bring that box back to him, because he wanted you to read the letters, thinking perhaps if you had something here to occupy your time and mind, you wouldn't be tempted to try to leave. He knew you wanted to work on trying to find Draco's killer, so he decided to bring evidence to you, instead of you going out and searching for it yourself," Harry revealed truthfully.

Hermione's mouth opened in shock. She stared at Lucius. Lucius avoided her gaze and looked at Potter and said, "I thought we had decided that she wasn't to know all of that yet, Potter! Does it hurt your halo when you lie, or does it become tarnished? Is the title of 'Saint' bestowed on you now, or must we wait and have it bestowed posthumously?"

Harry gave the older man a smile and said, "I never agreed to lie to her. I don't lie to my friends, so sue me."

Lucius barked out a laugh. "Don't lie to your friends? Don't make me laugh. You've lied to her from the beginning of this investigation! And also, don't act as if you brought this crate back solely on my say so. I think you did it so that once again you could find utter contentment and joy, hiding in the shadows, as your much smarter and able bodied best friend solves a mystery for you, just as she often figured everything out for you when you were young!"

Hermione spun to face Harry. Harry ignored Lucius' rude comment and continued with his earlier line of thought. "We'll get back to the fact that I haven't been getting your Owls, and that apparently you're not getting mine. I told Malfoy in the beginning that it would be secure for you to send Owls to me; he must have felt it would be better to intercept them. Maybe he was right about that, because I found out that someone else intercepted the Owl that Malfoy sent to me this morning, but I took care of that threat.

"As I was saying, hate is a strong emotion. Hate and love goes hand in hand, and Draco depleted a lot of time hating us, especially you, in the old days. If someone was fighting for Draco's attention, and most of his attention was on you, and even us, then he wasn't able to have time for this person, whoever it was."

"You knew about these?" She picked up a handful of the yellowed pieces of parchment and held them under Harry's nose.

"Yes, I knew. I'm the one that brought them back here, and before you insult your oldest and dearest friend, because I can tell an insult is on the end of your tongue, I didn't dismiss them. I actually feel that I found out who wrote them," Harry said. "Although I'm certain you probably think it's someone else."

That shocked even Lucius. He stood as well. "You never told me that!"

Harry glared back at him. "Well, I don't have to tell you everything, do I, Malfoy? You don't know what goes on in the Office of the Aurors," he mocked.

Lucius gleamed, "If you know who wrote them, you have to tell us!"

Hermione let the papers drop slowly to the ground. They fell from her fingers, floating slowly to the wooden floor by her feet. "Who, Harry?" she begged. "Who wrote them?"

"The woman who is sitting in Azkaban right now, in a prison cell, brought there under polyjuice potion, under the guise of one Hermione J. Granger," Harry said without preamble.

"But who?" She rushed to him and grabbed his collar.

Instead of answering he looked at Lucius and said, "After all, Lucius, you revealed to me in your Owl today that Hermione thinks polyjuice potion was used by someone to make us believe she killed Draco. Therefore, I find I have no repentance that I used it, if Hermione's theory is right, in putting this woman in Hermione's place in prison. After all, that's always been my theory, too."

Harry took Hermione's hands in his own, and said, "But I still have to prove it, and until I do, there's nothing we can do about any of this. We can't reveal who she really is, to anyone."

"You can tell me, you can tell us," Hermione beckoned, looking over at Lucius and then back to her best friend.

"No, I can't, not until I prove it, and also, because it's been ordered by the Minister of Magic himself. He's allowed me to do this, because he believes in her guilt as well, but I still need proof, some sort of link, to at least tie her to the letters from The Messenger, or proof that she actually used polyjuice potion to appear as you the day she killed Draco, something concrete that will hold up in trial, so you can finally really go free, Hermione."

Harry started out of the room and said, "By the way, Hermione, stop sending me Owls. I hate to admit it, but Lucius was right to seize them. I can't chance someone finding out that you're here. Lucius told me you're getting antsy, and I'm sorry, but you have to stay put, for now. Let me find out who this person is, and I will, I promise."

Hermione shot Lucius a hateful glare. He sat back down, crossed his legs, and perfected his best haughty glare right back at her, then he shrugged as he said, "I'll apologize for nothing. You heard it from Potter's very own lips. He thinks I did the right thing in intercepting those letters, and if St. Potter believes something is just and right, it must be so."

Harry walked out the door, but once in the hallway he turned again and said, "Hermione, did you ever ask yourself why Ron was in the room with Draco, just minutes before your wedding ceremony, when they hated each other? I've often asked myself that. I've even asked him. He's been truthful about so much, but that one little tidbit he's decided to keep secret. I know you don't want to see him, but perhaps you should. Perhaps he would tell you. Perhaps it would help us."

Hermione turned to face Lucius and said, "You've been intercepting my Owls to Harry?"

He cocked his head to the side, and shrugged again. "Guilty as charged, and is that really the only thing you want to discuss? How about the fact that Potter lied to you! He's apparently known for a long time who was behind murdering my son. Even he didn't trust you. Nor did he trust me, at least not enough to tell us! Weasley's keeping secrets, too! Perhaps you could exert a bit of your melancholy angst into some answers and find out what they're both hiding!"

Hermione took the crate of letters, books and parchments from the divan and threw it across the room, where the contents littered all over the floor, leaving a mess in its wake.

Lucius started out of the room and before he left he said, "Clean up this mess, won't you dear one? I'd hate to make the elves clean up after you. I think I'll tell them we'll be having a third to dinner. It's time Mr. Ronald Weasley came to visit his former best friend, don't you think? Don't bother with an Owl. I'll send it for you, since yours always seem to become woefully lost."

She growled and he shrugged again, just to irritate her.

"I swear, if you shrug once more time, I'm going to kick your head so far up your arse that your shoulders will no longer move," Hermione mumbled.

He laughed all the way down the hall.

Fine, she'd clean up this mess, and talk to Ron for the first time since she went to prison. She had many things to ask him, anyway. First being, did he know who Harry took to Azkaban in her place?


	7. Chapter 7 A Place to Know

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 7: A Place to Know:**

Lucius Malfoy often found his mind wandering these days. It wasn't that he was in his dotage, far from it. It was rather because he faced a fait accompli, so he was pleased with himself. He had long wanted Hermione Granger for his own, and now he had her, and he could barely think of anything else.

The journey from 'wanting' to 'having' was a long and tedious one. It was peppered with years of hate, then acceptance, and now gradually, it was becoming laced with something akin to love. Lucius fought the urge to walk around with a constant smile on his face, thinking of all the delightful ways he enjoyed her company now. Occasionally, erotic images would rear up in his mind and he would lose the battle to keep his thoughts to himself and he would be force to sit and stare and smile at her like a lovesick fool.

Such as today.

Hermione was reading in the garden, under a tree. She had on a heavy coat, a pair of those ridiculous men's dungarees, a heavy cable-knit jumper, and a hat over her head. Lucius was watching her from the window of the sitting room off the breakfast room, and all he could do was imagine peeling off each layer of her ridiculous clothing, exposing her pert breasts with their rosy nipples, sucking on the tips until she cried out in agony…Holding her luscious body next to his, burying himself between her knees.

Gads…he was as randy as a schoolboy.

There were times she caught him staring at her and she blushed. She would smile, or walk by him and touch his cheek or shoulder. That only made him want her more.

Yesterday, when he was 'Hermione watching', she looked up from her letter writing, stood up, hugged his shoulders and then gave him a trusting, warm smile, without a single word passing between them. Such acts as these forced his protectiveness to the very boundaries of his soul. It forced him to imagine what it would be like if his world converted back to what it was before she came home, and he shuddered to think.

At night they would come together, sometimes quietly, sometimes like a thunderous cry, her body under his, naked in the moonlight, hands and lips, cool sweat and sweet kisses. Nighttime passion served to burn his flame brighter at times like this…times during the day when he would watch her and have to admit, at least to himself, that he loved her and he couldn't live without her.

This morning at the breakfast table she told him that she was meeting Ronald Weasley today. She said she wrote to him and he agreed to talk with her. She finally needed some answers from him, answers only he could supply. Lucius thought it was a mistake and told her so. Actually, his exact words were, "I forbid it."

She stared hard at him, and then said, "I don't care what you forbid. I'm going to see him." Then she picked up her book and went outside and that was where she was now.

He opened the door to go to her. He walked under the barren oak tree where she sat and he knew he should break the spell by talking to her, but he merely continued to stare. She looked up and smiled again. Just as Helen of Troy was noted to be so beautiful that '_her face could launch a thousand ships'_ – Hermione's smile could launch a thousand ships.

How could he tell her all the things he wanted to say?

How could he tell her that she had reformed the former Death Eater? He smiled ruefully, if only to himself. He knew he still held the belief that purebloods were better than those of inferior birth. That was absolute. True, there were exceptions, such as this woman. Still, he was a changed man. Once bitter and cold and unfeeling, left that way with the deaths of his wife and son, he now knew how to love again, because he loved this woman. He would offer her the protection that she needed and sought, and he would help her find the answers she needed as well, even if that meant she might someday leave him.

Of course, he would have to try very hard to convince her never to do so. "Are you still meeting with the youngest Weasley son today, at your old house?" he asked her. He tried to act nonchalant. He leaned against the tree and pulled a small, black twig off of a low-lying branch.

She looked up. "Yes. Don't worry, Harry will be there."

"I've decided that you may meet him here, instead," Lucius said steadily.

She stood up, faced him, closed her book and said, "I already suggested that to him. He won't meet me here. He said he wouldn't cross your threshold if someone pointed a wand at him."

"Humph," Lucius snorted. He realized that by acting churlish, he was probably upsetting her, which wasn't his intent. "Am I permitted to accompany you then?"

"Can you assure me that you'll stay out of sight? Harry promised me, will you?" She looked up at him, expectantly.

Could he? Ronald Weasley was the last man to ever see his son alive. He wanted to know what the man knew. He merely nodded. Hermione threw her book on the ground and then took a step closer. Without request, Lucius placed his arms around her body. She tucked her head in his chest. It was their unspoken way. He could sense how unsettled she was, and rightly so. This man she was to meet had never visited her while she was being held in jail, he had never fully explained everything that he knew, and even more, he was never made to explain.

When Lucius looked down at her, she was biting her bottom lip. He reached for her lip with his thumb, rubbed it back and forth, and then leaned forward to place his lips upon hers. After a brief kiss he said, "Ah, perfection."

"You're partial," she labored.

"Too true," he agreed. "I'll stay hidden, out of sight, but I need to be with you. I need to hear first hand what the man knows."

Hermione nodded.

Later that day, in the early afternoon, Hermione sat in the dining room of the house she had shared with Draco, and she was waiting patiently for Ron to arrive. Harry and Lucius were in the kitchen. Hermione had performed a spell on the wall, making it almost transparent, so they would be able to see what went on in the other room. She also placed an 'eavesdropping' charm on the room, so they could hear. Harry sat on a stool, settling down, to wait.

Lucius was behind the younger man, pacing back and forth anxiously. "Hermione is very good with these types of spells," Lucius said, pointing toward the 'transparent' wall before them.

"Yes, she would have made a good Auror," Harry said in return.

"Better than you," Lucius said off-handedly.

Harry swiveled in his stool and stared hard at the older man. "What do you mean by that?"

"Only that you, as an Auror, shouldn't have let your partiality shroud your judgment, but it did. You picked one friend, Weasley, over another, Granger, and it cost Hermione a year of her life in jail. Even now, you seem to be protecting someone, so she can never really be free, can she?"

Harry growled, turned back to the wall, and said, "You know nothing."

"I know you don't seem eager to catch my son's killer. My son was never one of your favorite people, and you probably hated that your best friend was going to marry him. You were probably happy that he died," Lucius drawled.

Harry jumped off the stool and stood before the older man, wand drawn. "Before you say another word, Malfoy, let me make something perfectly clear. True, I didn't care for your son, but Hermione did. They weren't truly in love, but they had a deep, undying friendship and affection, and I accepted it, because it was important to Hermione.

"Second, Malfoy, I didn't pick Ron over Hermione. Ron doesn't even recall everything that happened. Even under Vertitserum, he can't seem to recall all the events of that night, whether it was because he was cursed, or it was too traumatic, I don't know. I never wanted to push it, because I already lost one friend to this mess, Hermione, and I didn't want to lose another.

"I only agreed to this because I hoped Hermione might reach Ron where others haven't. Also, I believe there are others involved in this, and though I've tried very hard to prove it, I haven't been able to, and I hope Ron will have the answers to those questions, too. Don't underestimate what I will or will not do for my friends, Malfoy! It would be a mistake on your part."

"Harry? Lucius?" Hermione stood in the doorway of the kitchen, the door opened only wide enough for her to stand partially in the doorway. Both men turned to her. "Will you both shut up? The doorbell just rang. I think he's here, and I don't want him to know you're in there hiding." She closed the door.

Harry sat back on the stool. Lucius leaned against the kitchen island; arms folded, he stared at the back of the younger man's head. Good. He had angered Potter. Anger, righteous, passionate anger, was a good thing. It made men do things that they normally wouldn't do. It would serve them well today. It might fuel the fire they needed to draw things out of Weasley if Hermione failed to do so today.

Hermione went to the front door and opened it.

"Hello, Ron," she said with a soft voice.

"Hermione? Are you alone in there?" he asked.

"Harry's here," she answered. She thought it best not to mention that Lucius was also there. "I'm not to be alone. Apparently there are people who want to kill me, or some such rubbish." She grinned.

He slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He locked it and then with his wand he said another locking spell. "Do you have your wand?" he asked.

She thought that was a strange question, but she answered. "Yes, of course I do. Why?"

"I wanted to make sure. Listen, I don't know what I can tell you. I know you want to ask me questions about that night, but I can't really remember much."

She took his hand and led him into the dining room. She pulled out a chair, pointed at it, and then sat in one next to it. He sat down slowly. "I haven't asked you to talk to me about any of this yet, Ronald, so I really think you rather owe it to me. You didn't come visit me once while I was in jail, you know."

He looked angry for a moment, but it passed by quickly. He said, "I'm happy you weren't sent to Azkaban."

"Someone was sent there recently though, as me," she replied. "Do you know who?"

He shook his head no. "Only Harry and the Minister of Magic know that. I don't know why it's such a big secret. I mean, if they have enough proof to free you, they should tell everyone, and also, how can they cart someone innocent off to jail like that? I mean, they must have the true guilty party, right?"

She shrugged. "We'll work through that later. May I ask you to tell me about that day first? Please? Tell me about the day Draco died."

_**

* * *

**_

Flashback:

"_I can't believe she's getting to married to the git," Ron said to Harry. They were dressing in the same room at the large, magical inn where Hermione and Draco were to wed later that day._

"_Let's not keep discussing it," Harry said, resigned._

"_But she can't marry him, Harry!" Ron shouted. "She's not in love with him, you know. She feels sorry for him. She loves him no more or less than she does any of her friends. The thought of her being tied to that wanker for the rest of her life, just because she feels sorry for him, makes me sick." Ron tried to tie his tie again, failed, pulled it from his neck and threw it on the ground._

"_They're still getting those threatening letters," Harry revealed. He stooped down to pick up Ron's tie, and handed it to him. "She doesn't even want us to know about it. Malfoy mentioned it to me. I think he wants to marry her to protect her. Remember when he found that 'fake Hermione' and he thought someone had killed her? He told me that he couldn't live with himself if someone killed her because of him."_

"_We'll protect her!" Ron shouted. "We don't need him to do it! Besides, she wouldn't be in danger if it wasn't for him!" Ron threw the tie across the room again._

_Harry gave him a funny look. "Why do you say that?"_

"_Well…I mean, isn't that what the notes and letters from that Messenger say? Doesn't that guy think that they shouldn't be together because he's a pureblood elitist and she's a humble Muggle-born?"_

_Harry merely stared at him. "I know that's what some of them have said. Some are totally unmitigated attacks on just her, though. Some blame her for bringing him down." Picking up Ron's tie once more, he handed it to him, and ended with, "Get yourself together. This marriage is going to happen, and if we don't want to lose Hermione forever, you had better accept it, and Malfoy."_

_Harry walked out of the room._

_Ron threw the tie in the rubbish bin and stormed down the hall to find Draco Malfoy._

* * *

"Okay," Hermione said, holding Ron's hand. "You and Harry argued about my getting married to Draco. Then you went off to find him. What were you going to say to him once you did find him?"

Ron shrugged slightly with one shoulder, drew his hand away from her, and said, "I don't want to talk anymore."

"But, Ron, you haven't really told me anything yet," she beseeched. "Tell me, did you know more about the letters from the Messenger than you let Harry know? Did you ever know who they were from, or who might have been behind them? Did you have any theories about them that you didn't express?"

He stood up so suddenly that he knocked his chair over backwards. "Why are you asking me about that?"

She stood as well. "I want to know, that's why. I have a few theories. Do you want to know them?"

"NO!"

"Ron?" she stated plainly.

"I won't say anymore," he pleaded. "I won't!"

"Ron, please, tell me what you know. The letters started much earlier than we first suspected. I recently found out that Draco started getting them while we were still in school. He got them even the year you and Harry and I were searching for Horcruxes. They were left in his books, and a few were even written in his books," she explained.

He leaned against the sideboard, folded his arms in front of him and said, "Well, there you go! Someone from Slytherin house is behind it! That makes sense, too! They wouldn't like it that you would date the prince of the purebloods!"

"I didn't date him then," she reminded him. "I didn't even like him. Also, it didn't necessarily have to be a pureblood. It just had to be someone who had access to Slytherin's dungeons. And I think its two people. I think it started out as one person, then blossomed to two, or perhaps it started as one with just the help of the second, and then the second person started sending the messages, too."

"You're, well, you're a nutter! That's crazy talk…Two people!" Ron walked away from her, his back toward the long set of windows on the opposite wall.

"Fine, Ron, we'll discuss that later. Tell me what happened after you went to see Draco on our wedding day."

* * *

"_Come in," Draco said. He was sitting at a dressing table, reading another nasty note from the Messenger when there came a knock at the door to the room where he was dressing. Couldn't the stupid bastard leave things alone even on his wedding day? When would it all stop? He had to protect Hermione, somehow. She had been the only bright light in his dark, fading life. If something happened to her because he failed to put a stop to this nonsense, he would never forgive himself._

_He folded the parchment when he heard the person who was knocking on the door open the door and enter. He looked up. It was Hermione. _

_Draco smiled up at her. She pointed her wand at him and as she uttered the death curse at him, Ron Weasley stood idle behind her, but in shock, in the open doorway. He watched as Draco crumbled to the ground. Hermione turned and stared right into Ron's eyes. Ron was molded to the spot for a moment. He honestly couldn't move. He couldn't think. He couldn't function._

_He saw Hermione reach down and take something out of Draco's hand and then she ran away. Ron knew Draco was dead. He ran yelling from the room. He ran for help. He just ran._

_When he returned moments later, with Harry Potter and some of his brothers behind him, Hermione was back, cradling a dead Draco Malfoy in her arms, and she was crying._

* * *

Hermione felt a prickling sensation on the back of her neck. She pictured Draco as she saw him on the ground that day. Ron spoke so dispassionately about what he saw, but in her mind, it was all happening again. She saw it as if it was being played on a small reel of tape, and it wouldn't stop.

She sat down and clutched the table's edge. She asked, "Okay, you said I took something from Draco's hand?"

"Yeah, a piece of parchment," Ron reiterated.

"Did you mention this to Harry or the Aurors at the time, or since?" she asked.

"I don't know, probably, maybe. Possibly I just recalled that part," he said honestly. He sat beside her. Neither of them knew it was a note from the Messenger that 'Hermione' had stolen.

"Do you recall what I had on when you saw me kill Draco?" she asked.

"What?" he asked surprised. "Your wedding dress, I suppose. That's what you had on when we came back in the room. I recall, because your veil had slipped slightly while you were holding Draco, and even though you were so distraught, and disheveled, I thought you looked beautiful, but so sad."

"And I had my dress and veil on when I killed Draco?" she repeated.

Ron was quiet for a very long time, then acknowledgment seemed to light up in his eyes, before he answered. "No. I know for a fact that you didn't have a veil on when you killed Malfoy, and your hair – your hair was different. I know that now because your hair was up, and parts of it had come down with the veil when you were holding Malfoy's body, but when you killed Malfoy your hair was long."

Hermione reached for his hand. "How long did it take you to go from the room, after I killed Draco, to get Harry and the others?"

"I don't know. No more than a minute or two, if that long," he admitted.

"How could I have put my hair up, and a veil on, and managed to hold the dead body of my future husband, all in that short amount of time, Ron?" she questioned.

In the kitchen, Harry looked back at Lucius and Lucius asked Harry, "That's a very good question, isn't it?"


	8. Chapter 8 A Place to End

**All characters belong to JKR **

**Chapter 8: A Place to End**

She was tired. There was an old, well used axiom: 'Tired to the bone'. Hermione was THAT tired. She was tired in an allegorical and purely metaphorical way. She wasn't sleep deprived. She wasn't tired from working too hard or too long. She hadn't exerted herself to the point of exhaustion.

What she was, was tired to the point of weariness with life itself. She was waiting for her current life to end, so a new one could begin. Waiting for this ending, this chapter repose, this finale, was exhausting. Even the exhaustion at the waiting was arduous.

The day Ron had visited they talked for at least four hours. No further revelations were forthcoming. He admitted that in his shock he didn't question many things that as a trained Auror, he should have questioned.

He also finally admitted that he often felt as if there was a 'hole' in his memory regarding that night. He said that he frequently thought that perhaps he was under a spell of some type. He never wanted to pursue it, because he didn't WANT to question what he saw.

He admitted to feeling happy that Draco Malfoy was dead. He admitted that in a weird way, he was glad that Hermione was the one who had killed him. He said he thought it was a fitting end for Draco, and a just thing for Hermione to have done. He said that he had hated (yes, hated) them both for so long, for so many reasons, that deeming Hermione a killer and Draco a dead man relieved some of his guilt. It freed some of his hate.

It didn't make sense to Harry, who revealed himself to Ron, and then took him into custody for further questioning. It made even less sense to Lucius. However, Hermione said that she understood. Ron, who loved her as more than a friend, even though they had decided that friends were all they could be, was finally being honest.

Perhaps he was tired, too.

Harry took Ron into custody. He said he was going to interrogate him further once they were back at the Ministry. There were new types of truth serum, new spells he could use to help unblock Ron's memory, or discover if he had been cursed to 'remember' things incorrectly. Harry admitted to both Ron and Hermione that he always thought that perhaps Ron knew about the letters and threats from the Messenger, but had been cursed to forget them.

Harry promised Hermione he would finally discover the truth. He apologized to her that he hadn't done his best to solve the case in the past. He admitted that this was due to reasons of his own. Now though, he said that he was tired of the lies and deceptions, tired of prolonging everything and that he wanted it to end as much as she did. Harry Potter was tired, too.

She didn't doubt that one iota. Before he left, Harry promised her one last thing. He promised he wouldn't return without revealing some painful truths of his own to Hermione.

Hermione could hardly wait, though in many ways, she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear any of it.

Three days came and went, and she was once again outside, under a tree, but this time she was only pretending to read, because she was tired. And it was cold. Very, very cold. Lucius walked out, looked down at her, and held out his hand.

She was too tired to reach up for it.

Was it fair to Draco's memory that she loved this man? Was if fair to Lucius that she still lived partly in the past and that she couldn't yet move into the future until she was totally free of the chains and shackles of this soul deep exhaustion? Love was a fickle beast, and she felt in her heart that she loved Lucius. Still, she wondered if it was fair to him that she couldn't give him all of her heart. A tiny, little, dark piece of her heart would always be dead. It didn't know how to love, or feel, or give any longer.

Was it fair not to give it all to him, when it was apparent that he gave all of his heart to her?

Hermione Granger was so very tired of thinking.

What had her life come to? Was she to live the rest of it set upon a shelf, pushed to the background? Was this a self imposed exile, or one that was thrust upon her? Lucius Malfoy had wondered these things, and many more, during the last few days.

Hermione was pulling away from him, and pushing him away from her, and he was powerless to stop it. The more he tried to assure her that they would find Draco's true killer, the more she reverted inside herself.

It was all so exhausting to Lucius. He held out his hand to her again and said, "Enough of this. Take my hand. It's rude not to, when it's offered to you." The real meaning of his words was, _"I'm tired too, Hermione, but I will always be here for you. You don't have to block me out, or back away from me. I'm not leaving you and I refuse to let you leave me."_ Did she know him well enough to know the true meaning of his words, or would he have to speak them aloud for her to understand?

A sign of awareness passed between them. She understood and took his hand.

They stood under a tree, holding hands and she said, "You know more about this than you've let on, don't you? So does Harry. Harry always suspected Ron of being guilty of duplicity. He thought perhaps Ron killed Draco, or was protecting the person who really did, and that he was blocking that knowledge due to a mental break or a dark curse. In essence, Harry picked Ron over me. I knew that, and allowed it, so I guess I picked Ron over me, too, because I didn't want to live without Draco."

She took a deep breath, grasped his hand tighter, and continued to look in his eyes. "And you knew that the notes and threats started before Draco and I were together, and you never told me. I also suspect you know who Harry took to Azkaban. You're still an influential man, and no one is more influential than Harry. You can't put an innocent person in prison, so who's there? Who are you all protecting?"

He didn't answer. He didn't know if she wanted him to do so, or even if he could. She rubbed her face hard with one hand and said, "I'm so tired, and I want this to end, and apparently I'm the only one that can end it, so I will, tonight. I've Owled the Minister of Magic. He's meeting me tonight, at my old house. He's agreed to tell me everything he knows. I think if you and Harry are hiding anything, you better disclose your information by the end of the day, or you'll lose me forever."

He didn't know if that was a threat or a promise.

Then she said, "Take me inside and make love to me."

Well now, he understood those words quite well.

Inside her bedroom, watching her undress for him, he knew she was no longer the same woman, and he didn't know what to do about that. Even now, preparing to make love, she was pushing him away, not with actions or words, but in her heart. If she chose not to allow him to love and protect her, he would find a way to do so without her permission, because that was the type of man he was.

She thought it was over between them, over before it started, but she was wrong. He felt strangely hurt, his pride slightly bruised, at the thought that she could just so easily give him up, when he needed her as much as he needed air and water.

Devoid of her clothing, and most of her emotions, except for an undeniable rage which she kept deep inside, she stood before him. He was still fully dressed, fully aroused, and fully angered. "Hermione," he began, "I know what you're thinking. For days, you've been moving away from me. You mean this lovemaking, right now, to be a goodbye. Hear me, my love, this is not goodbye."

The mask on her face fell and she leaned forward, burying her face in his chest. Loud, awkward sobs escaped her mouth. He held her close, his arms tight around her. He didn't know what to do for her.

He was a man without fear. He was mostly a man without morals or conscience. He had fought in wars, and had won and lost. Faces of the many people he killed and hurt were blank to him, because he had no remorse for killing or hurting them. But somehow, he felt as if this woman had restored his soul, his humanity, but at what price? Had she paid for his soul with her own?

He had avoided trying to help her solve her mystery, and end her rage, because he didn't want her to leave him. Ever. He wanted to keep her physically with him for the rest of his life. He never imagined that she would withdraw from him emotionally and mentally, while still maintaining her physical presence. She was slipping away.

He drew her head from his chest, cupped her cheek, and said, "We'll find Draco's killer, and you will be free. You can leave here if you want, and never come back."

She pulled back, wiped her eyes, and said one word, "Yes."

He didn't know to which of his statements she was agreeing, but it didn't matter. So be it.

Then they made love. It was fierce and passionate. There was tenderness and pleasure. They took, gave, shared, and rejoiced. They became one, and separated as two. He wasn't sure what he was going to do without her. He thought of it constantly while he loved her, though he tried to push the thought away. He lowered his entire weight on her, wrapped himself in her warm body, and allowed himself to be held. She held him tightly.

She had tears in her eyes when she climaxed. He collapsed on her. She held him tighter and told him, "Stay, don't move."

He would do anything for her. He remained on top of her, inside of her, and perhaps, when the time came, and she asked him to say goodbye, he could even say goodbye to her.

When they were depleted, he continued to watch her. He watched her as he dressed, and later when he was leaning against the mantle above the fireplace. She was sleeping, and he hated to wake her, because he knew she was so very tired, but he had to. He knew it all had to end. "Wake up, Hermione. Please, my love, wake up."

His voice was soft, beguiling, and even sensual. She turned over in the bed and stared up at his face. The light of day streamed into the windows and his expression was clear to her. It was one of longing. It was one of expectation. It was one of anticipation. She sat up, the sheet under her arms. This all felt achingly familiar.

"What is it?" she asked, resigned.

"I rather think it's the end, isn't it?" he said with a smile.

A surge of anger suddenly coursed through her. Not toward him. He hadn't forced her into this situation. She had forced him. She shifted on the bed, and then decided to dress. She pulled up the covers and asked, "The end of what?" just to goad him.

"Of us, of this, of everything. You're thinking of leaving me. I'm thinking of making you go. It's all so tiresome, don't you agree?" He tried to sound glib. He smiled a faint smile. He wondered what she would do if he demanded that she leave? Would she? Would it be easier for him, if he made her leave? Easier than if she left on her own?

Hermione moved over to the closet, pulled out a suitcase and started to pack. "I don't blame you for anything, you know. I don't blame Harry either, but you both could have helped me solve this sooner, couldn't you?"

He tried to remain somber, adding, with reluctance, "Perhaps." He had grudgingly withheld some information from her. That was true. Potter had as well. Did they have the right? Who knew? He murmured, "I wanted a relationship with you and that was all that mattered to me at the time. I'm a foolish old man. I lost my son. I didn't want to lose you."

"You wouldn't have lost me. You would have had me freely, without bonds on my freedom," she said warily. He watched her features turn cold and stony as she packed.

"Where will you go?" he asked, curious.

"Back to my home. The home I shared with Draco. I want this to end. I have a few people to see. If you want to help me, you can. If you don't, I only have one request. Stay out of my way, Lucius Malfoy." She picked up her suitcase and left the room without a backwards glance.

However, before she left, and without looking at him, she said, "I do love you, though."

"Yes, I know," he said to an empty room after she left. "If only that was enough." He walked from the room, and caught up with her as she was about to leave the front doors. He pulled her arm, hard, and crushed her to his chest. He placed a hand on her face, roughly, but then kissed her tenderly. Then he left before she could. He had a few people to see.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry Potter sat alone in his little office at the Ministry. He had papers and reports strewn all across his desk. He took his hands and leveled the desk with one fell swipe. He stood up, huffed an angry breath, and went over to an interrogation cell, where Ron Weasley had been for the past three days.

For three days Harry had questioned his former best friend. He had questioned him under Veritaserum, and under a new, more potent truth serum. He used Legilimency on him. He used spells and curses on him, everything he could, to try to unlock the events of that night from his friend's memory.

Nothing worked.

Harry was at his end. He sat down across from Ron. Ron looked tired. He was sleep deprived. He was hungry and thirsty, and he had to go to the toilet. He looked at Harry and he said, "What more can I do, Harry? I don't know what to tell you. I can only remember what I remember."

"Really, Ron? Are you certain you're not protecting someone?" Harry asked with another sigh.

"Who would I be protecting, Mate? If I could help clear Hermione's name I would. Why don't you tell me what you know? How is it that you were able to obtain her freedom, no matter how dubious it might be?" Ron reached over and placed his hand on Harry's arm.

"Why didn't you ever tell me that you knew who the Messenger was, Ron? You were an Auror. You had a duty to protect Hermione and even Malfoy, and yet you withheld information that could have helped free them from the danger. Yet, you did nothing."

Harry stood and faced away from Ron. "Even though you hated Malfoy, Hermione was being threatened too. Hell, I hated the git too. Ron, you should have told who it was."

Ron stood as well. "How? How did you find out who it was?"

Harry turned back to face Ron. "She confessed to me. She's the one that's in Azkaban right now, under the guise of Hermione Granger."

Lucius Malfoy and Adrian Pucey followed two guards closely through the labyrinth of hallways and corridors of Azkaban Prison. Lucius felt bile rise in his throat at the raw memory of his time here, all those years ago. True, the guards were now regular men, but the place still reeked of misery and sadness and pain.

Adrian turned to Lucius and said, "Potter had no proof, mind you. She didn't confess to anything but to sending some of the letters. We know she didn't even send them all. She had help. She told us that much. Her mind is so weak, however. It's like a fragile cobweb, with some fragments connecting to lucid truths, and some connecting to pure lunacy and fabrications."

Lucius nodded. The clicking of their heels on the floor was distracting him from the miserable thoughts that kept creeping into his mind of his time here. He tried harder to concentrate on what the younger man was saying to him.

"Still," Adrian continued, "a confession to some of the letters isn't a confession of guilt to killing your son. He knows that, as does the Minister. The Minister is giving Potter only six months to find proof, or else she goes free, and Hermione will come take her place."

Lucius stopped walking. Adrian stopped as well. "No," Lucius barked. "She didn't kill him!"

"The proof is still in the pudding, as the Muggles say. Weasley saw the whole thing, and they can't dispute what he saw. Potter's been questioning him for the past three days to no avail. So in the end, what does it matter who sent the threatening letters, if Weasley saw Hermione kill him, and there's no way to prove that he's lying? Draco had a letter from the Messenger grasped in his hand the day he died, did you know?"

Lucius shook his head. The resumed their walk, following the guards, deeper into the underbelly of the beast.

"Apparently, Hermione took it from his hand before she killed him. Potter told me last night that Weasley just remembered that wondrous fact. Here's what I wonder…and Potter pointed it out too, how did Weasley know it was a letter from the Messenger? A letter was never found, and still has never been found. Perhaps he recognized the parchment, or stationery. This means, if he recognized it, he knew all along the identity of the Messenger. This also could mean that the Messenger and the killer are one and the same, or at least the Messenger might know who the killer is."

Lucius stopped again. "We find that last note, with my son's DNA or fingerprints on it, and then we find the real killer."

"Fingerprints?" Adrian asked, looking over at the older man.

"I know a bit about Muggle forensic science, too," Lucius retorted.

The guards finally stopped at a heavy wooden door. It was locked simply with a single lock and the key was in the door.

"After you, Lucius," Adrian said. He dismissed the guards. Adrian didn't want anyone else to know what was happening. To everyone else here, this was Hermione Granger, in protective custody. Since he was warden to Azkaban's special ward, he knew otherwise.

Lucius walked into the spacious cell. It was quite comfortable, compared to his accommodations when he was here, years ago. A young woman was sitting at a desk, her back to them, writing. She stopped, placed the quill in the inkwell, and swiveled on her stool.

"Lucius Malfoy?" she asked, timidly. "I used to know your son, did you know that?"

Lucius was shocked at the sight of the woman before him. He turned to Adrian and said, "No. This can't be. Potter must have this wrong."

Adrian shook his head slowly and said, "Don't you think he would have anyone else here if he could? No, he's sure, but still, he's lacking proof. Talk to her, Lucius. Use your Legilimency skills. Find out what she knows. No one else has been able to pull anything from her mind. Perhaps you can. You have my blessing."

Lucius walked up to the woman, and said, "May I speak with you?" She smiled. He sat on the bed. She walked over and sat beside him. He held out his hand. She placed her hand in his. "Close your eyes, and open your mind to me, Miss Weasley," he commanded.

Hermione roamed around her old house, turning on all the lights. She walked back into the hallway after all the lights were on, and the curtains were all closed, and said, "You don't have to stay here with me, you know."

Theo Nott, who worked for Lucius Malfoy, stood in the hallway, near the front door. He gave her a lazy grin and said, "Lucius said that I did. If you're going to talk to the Minister of Magic, he wants someone here with you. He doesn't trust the man, and frankly, neither should you."

She cocked her head to the side, hands on hips, and said, "Of course I trust him! I've known him most of my life! And furthermore, Harry has complete and utter trust in the man!"

Theo threw his head back and laughed. "Harry Potter doesn't trust him! Harry Potter has been using him to get you out, and to put Ginny Weasley in Azkaban!"

"Ginny Weasley's in Azkaban? Why?" she asked in shock.

There was a knock at the door. Theo walked over to her, closed her open mouth with a simple finger to her chin, and said, "No time to explain, sweetness. Go answer the door. I'll hide away, but I'll be right there if you need me. Ask the right questions, Granger. Get him to confess."

Theo started toward the back of the house, when Hermione turned to him and hissed, "Confess to what?"

"To killing Draco, of course," he said.

_(One more chapter and then an epilogue.)_


	9. Chapter 9 A Place to Discover

**All Characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 9: ****A Place**** to Discover –**

Numbness filled every pore of Hermione Granger's skin. Each nerve ending felt severed. Every feeling she had ever felt was cauterized and ripped from her soul. Sitting in her former living room on a small loveseat, she was trying hard to concentrate on the words coming from the man in front of her, but instead she was having trouble following what he was saying, because she felt so detached. His tone was chilly and clipped. It was as if he telling her the events of his day, instead of recounting the story of how he had ruined her life.

This was a dream. She was truly having an outer body experience. She felt dismembered. She felt disjointed. There was no way that this was real. This couldn't be real. Did Draco really die for this?

As if sensing that she was no longer paying attention to him and his rant, he grabbed her by her chin, and showing a display of misguided emotion, he shouted, "LISTEN TO ME!"

She was listening. She just couldn't comprehend. She couldn't believe any of this. None of it made sense to her. Why would this man hate Draco so much? Why would this man be so obsessed with her? He had never shown any signs that he felt anything other than friendship toward her most of their entire lives.

No reprieve was in sight…his story was past the point of no return. He had been talking for over an hour, but he was growing weary, that much she could tell. He even complained to her that his weariness was over the fact that it had taken this long to conclude 'his mission', but that it was all finally going to end tonight.

He admitted everything to her. Everything apart from the main thing she wanted to know. WHY?

He told Hermione that his anger and jealously toward Draco started when they were still in school. He never fully explained why he hated Draco, or how his hatred of Draco became muddled with his obsession with her, but apparently it started after Draco once made the off-handed comment during third year that it was a shame that Hermione was a Mudblood, because he thought she was the prettiest girl in school. This man, still a boy at the time, overheard that comment and became enraged for a multitude of reasons.

Draco Malfoy was the son of a Death Eater!

Draco Malfoy was supposed to hate Mudbloods!

More importantly in his opinion, Draco Malfoy wasn't good enough for people like her. Who did he think he was?

He explained to Hermione that he was jealous that Draco always got everything that he wanted, but he took perverse joy knowing that there was at least one thing in the world that no matter HOW MUCH Draco wanted it, he would never have it: HER.

So he set his mind to remind Draco of that. The first note he sent him harked back to that very thing. He said it was innocuous enough. He merely 'reminded' Draco of his heritage. He wrote: "You're a pureblood, she's a mudblood, remember that."

He thought one note would be all that it would take, but apparently, Draco didn't heed the warning. The other man revealed that he had access to most of the castle during school, so he would leave notes to Draco in schoolbooks and library books. He even sent him Owls. He wanted to play to Draco's fierce sense of pureblood heritage. He assumed that after a few well placed notes to Draco, the other boy's infatuation with Hermione would turn to hate once more.

Then during the Yule ball, fourth year, he caught Draco staring at Hermione a bit too long. That infuriated him! He had stopped sending Draco 'messages' because he had thought Draco's fascination with Hermione had ceased, but apparently it hadn't.

That was the first night things became physical. He revealed that he tripped Draco on the stairs after the ball. When he, along with some other boys, went to help him up, he stuck another note in Draco's pocket. It read: "Son of a Death Eater soils himself when he looks at a Mudblood." He never wanted Draco to suspect the notes were from a friend or acquaintance, so he usually worded them to sound as if they were from an enemy.

Years went by and nothing untold happened. Draco seemed to be following in the footsteps of his father, hating all things 'impure', so the messages stopped. He even became engaged to Astoria Greengrass, who he was betrothed to since infancy. Hermione became engaged to Ron. Harry Potter began to date Ginny Weasley.

The other man knew there was no place in her life for someone like him, but he said as long as she didn't soil herself with the likes of Draco, he was content to see her with someone like Ron. All seemed right. Everything was as it was meant to be. It was all he ever wanted – his family, friends, acquaintances, and even his enemies to be in their proper place in his neat and tidy little world.

She wanted to ask him what right did he have to decide if everything was right or wrong with the world, but she kept quiet, didn't try to make sense of it all, and merely tried to absorb the sordid details.

"Then," the man said, "You and Ron broke up. I never understood why. You had no good reason to stop seeing him! And you were still friends! That didn't make any sense! And Harry Potter stopped going out in public with Ginny. She told me that he was backing away from her. Everything was unraveling."

"The worst part came when Draco announced to the world that his betrothal was over," he said quietly, sitting down for the first time. "That's when I knew…I knew he did it because you were finally free. He still wanted you. He was still obsessed. He only wanted you because he thought you were unattainable. He wanted you because I told him he couldn't have you. That was my gravest error. I forbade him from seeing you, and no one ever forbade Draco from anything, so he went after you because of that."

Hermione clenched her jaw, holding in her biting response. Draco was never obsessed with her, as this man made it sound. He didn't start dating her because she was 'forbidden'. However, she didn't crave this man's high opinion, and she knew the truth would be lost on him, so she kept her silence.

The man added, "He started going around you at work. You started going out to lunch together. You were a sympathetic ear and a shoulder on which he could cry. He was all darkness and you were all light, and he was going to taint you forever, and you were going to let him! You were no better than him after all. All these years I thought that even if he did care for you, you would never lower yourself to care for him in return."

He stopped talking and looked right in her eyes. "But you did. You fell in love with him…him, the son of the greatest Death Eater of them all, the boy who tried to kill Dumbledore. You, you loved someone like him, but yet never ONCE, in all our lives, did you ever even glance my way! DRACO MALFOY WON AGAIN!" After his small outburst he sat back and stared into space.

Hermione stared at him as the silence ensued. Though Draco was never obsessed with her, it sounded as if this man was. Finally she stated, "And that's when the notes to me began, too. Because you didn't approve. You were upset with me."

"Yes."

"Sometimes your notes warned me from him, and said that I wasn't good enough for him, and sometimes they called me all sorts of names, and said that I was lowering myself by being with him. It was as if the notes took on a duality, a double meaning. Did you write all of the notes yourself?"

"Yes."

"You had no accomplice?" she asked.

"No." He hung his head, shook it and repeated, "No, I always acted alone. I didn't want anyone to know. It was my problem to fix."

Hermione was confused. She assumed Ginny Weasley was in Azkaban because she was the Messenger, or at least his accomplice. Perhaps she was there because she really was the killer. Hermione was about to ask this man if he knew who killed Draco when she heard a whimper come from the man lying on the floor in the corner.

"Ah, our friend is waking up," the ranting man said. He stood up, his wand dangling from his hand. "Really, it wasn't nice of him to try to spy on us, was it? I only stunned him before, Hermione. Should I kill him now?"

Hermione looked up into the face of a mad man and said, "Oh, please, no. Percy, no."

* * *

Holding the hand of the young woman in his, Lucius Malfoy smiled at her again and said, "I'm so glad we were able to have this talk, Miss Weasley. Everything will be alright now. Do not fear any longer. No one will hurt you anymore. I'm so proud of you for remembering everything."

He stood up and adjusted his robes. As he turned to go, the serene look he presented to the young woman was replaced with a mask of rage. He went to the door and banged on it twice with his fist. Adrian, who was on the other side, opened it quickly.

"Were you successful? Did you find out if she had anything to do with killing Draco? Did you find out why she's really in here, because I have to admit, that baffles me the most," Adrian concluded. "Why would Harry Potter, and most of all, her own brother, Percy Weasley, the Minister of Magic, place her here under the guise of Hermione?"

"I found out everything we needed to know, but I don't have time to explain. Since we can't Disapparate from Azkaban, then we must make all haste. We have to get back to London, and find Hermione. She was to meet Percy Weasley tonight, and I'm afraid she's in terrible danger. We have to hurry!" Lucius started running down the long hallway.

"She'll be safe enough," Adrian said as he jogged next to the older man. "She's with Theo, right? Wasn't he to guard her?"

"She's in more danger than you realize," Lucius said cryptically, never stopping once. "I'll explain as we go, come!"

* * *

Harry escorted Ron to a holding cell near the Auror's office. They had both taken showers and had a bite to eat, but then Harry explained that Ron wasn't free to go home. Ron didn't understand why he was being held still, or what more he could tell Harry, but he didn't question anything. He was too tired to question anything.

Harry closed the bars of the holding cell and said, "You're alone. No one is in the adjoining cell, so you're safe. Try to get some sleep."

Ron didn't understand why Harry used the phrase, 'You're be safe'. Harry turned to walk away when Ron called out, "Harry?"

"What?" Harry didn't turn back to look at his friend.

"Why did Percy allow you to take Ginny to Azkaban? Do you both think she killed Draco? Do you think Percy knows something? Do you think I'm trying to protect them? Because, really, I don't recall anything. I would tell you if I did, but I do know that Ginny wouldn't kill Malfoy. I know it. What would be her motive?"

Harry turned back slowly. He leaned his back against the wall and slid down bit by bit so that he was sitting before Ron's small cell. Ron leaned forward on the cot, his hands clenched tightly between his legs, to listen to Harry's response to his queries.

"I know that. So does Percy. She wouldn't kill Malfoy on her own. Ron, there are a few things you don't know. Percy knows that Hermione didn't kill Draco because he was with her the moment that Draco died. He doesn't want anyone to know that. He's covered that fact very carefully. She told the Aurors when she was arrested that he was with her when Draco was killed, but he had proof that he wasn't, and you seemed to have proof that that she was the one lying, so we had no choice but to arrest her."

"Percy wouldn't lie," Ron stated plainly. "If he could have helped Hermione, he would have."

Harry merely shook his head. "No, you're wrong. Hermione told us at the time that Percy tried, in vain, to convince her not to go through with the wedding. When we questioned her why he would do such a thing, she had no clue.

"I found out later, on my own, that his motives were personal. It seems he was a bit obsessed with her or some tripe. He hated that she ruined the perfect picture of 'the golden trio' that he had in his mind, regarding you, me and her. He thought that if she married Malfoy, it would look badly on you. He thought the public would wonder why she threw over a war hero for a Death Eater. He couldn't stand that thought. Anything that looked bad on you looked bad on him as the new Minister of Magic. The reasons don't matter, and I no longer care.

"When I found out, I told Percy if he didn't right all of these wrongs, immediately, I would find proof and throw his arse in jail." Harry rubbed the place between his eyes, his glasses being held in one hand.

"But…but, Percy couldn't have been with Hermione when Malfoy was murdered!" Ron spouted. "If he was, why didn't he ever tell anyone that?" Ron, tired though he was, stood up, indignant. "That would have been the best possible alibi! He could have saved her from going to prison! Wait, that still doesn't explain why Ginny's in Azkaban." Ron approached the bars of the small cell and sat down on the floor.

"Ginny's in Azkaban for protection," Harry answered, "and by now, Lucius Malfoy, who went to question her this evening, might have found out why. I hope he ascertains more than we ever could. I always suspected that she was under the Imperius Curse, and that under the influence of such, after having ingested Polyjuice Potion to resemble Hermione, she did, without doubt, kill Draco Malfoy. The problem is I still don't have proof, and without a corroborating story from either Ginny or the person who put her under that curse, I still don't have enough proof to set Hermione free. I was hoping you would give me that proof, Ron."

Ron looked at his best friend, shocked. "NO!" He scooted across the floor, away from the bars, into the corner of the small cell. This time, he said no again, although quietly, and more to himself. "No, no, no, no."

"Yes, she did, but she's not responsible," Harry said, resigned. He stood up. He was so weary. "Still, we don't know why. We don't know who used the Imperio on her. Her mind's so altered that she can barely remember anything, not even who she is. To protect her from harm from the person who cursed her, and to protect your family and his position as new Minister of Magic, your brother Percy decided to send her there. Frankly, I think he only wants to protect himself from a scandal.

"Percy's been deciding everyone's fate for a while now. He's the one that decided Hermione would be convicted, since he wasn't going to give her an alibi. Also, there was an eyewitness, wasn't there?" Harry pointed to Ron. Ron looked pained.

Ron said, "Hermione was a sacrificial lamb. Percy used her. And we failed her in the end, didn't we?"

Harry merely nodded in affirmation. "Yes, we failed her, Ron."

* * *

Hermione looked over at Percy Weasley. When he first arrived this evening, she begged off all unnecessary conversations and asked what she really, truly, wanted to know first and foremost.

The moment he walked into her house she asked him, "Did you kill Draco?" She knew he didn't, but she had to ask. She knew he didn't because he was with her when Draco died.

He looked up at her. He had tears streaming down his face. "No, Hermione. I hated him. I was with him a few moments before he died. I told him how much I hated him and his kind. I saw that he had a note in his hand. It was from the Messenger. I told him that it was never going to end, unless he gave you up. I didn't say it was from me, per se, but I allowed him to think as much, and I told him that whatever was said in the note he should heed the warning. Then, I left him to talk to you. I even passed Ron in the hallway.

"I asked Ron where he was going and he said he was going to see Malfoy. He was going to try to convince him not to marry you. I never told him that I was going to you to do the same. I wished him luck and then we smiled at each other and went our separate ways.

"I hated that you were going to marry Malfoy, but I was with you when he was murdered. That's why I've worked hard with Harry Potter to try to get you out of prison, because I knew you didn't do it."

"Does Harry know you're the Messenger?" she asked.

"What?" he asked, surprised. "I'm not the Messenger."

* * *

Lucius and Adrian arrived outside Hermione's house. So they would not be seen, they slipped to the back garden and hid behind a cluster of trees. They were aided by the darkness of the night. Adrian had already sent an Owl to Harry asking for his help. "Are you going to tell me what's going on here, Malfoy?" Adrian asked.

"We've been lied to," Lucius said with anger. "Someone we trusted, implicitly, has lied to us for a very long time. The lies started when he was still a boy, and perpetuated into adulthood. I can't believe we didn't realize it."

"You're talking riddles," Adrian moaned. "What did Ginny reveal to you?"

"I'll tell you when Potter gets here," Lucius groaned. "I only hope it won't be too late. To think, I practically handed Hermione to Draco's killer by letting her come here without me tonight!"

"Percy Weasley killed your son?" Adrian asked, astonished. "I thought for sure that Ginny Weasley was the killer."

Lucius looked perturbed. "She was the killer, but she wasn't responsible for what she did. The killer found that Ginny was jealous of Hermione. She had been for most of their lives. He found a kindred spirit in her, in that he apparently had spent his entire life jealous of my son. They fed on each other's hatred and obsessions. He used her to exact a final act of vengeance against Hermione and Draco, by having Miss Weasley, under Polyjuice Potion, kill my son. He made sure that the youngest Weasley son would witness the entire thing. Hermione had no alibi, there was an eyewitness, and so there was no doubt that she was guilty. Meanwhile, he's been walking around free."

"Yet Hermione only served a year, and now she's free, why?" Adrian asked.

"The Minister of Magic has finally found his conscience, perhaps? It seems he was with Hermione when my son died. He could have given her an alibi, but he didn't. Also, Miss Weasley has started to remember everything. I'm sure her brother, along with Mr. Potter, wanted her to be safely out of the way of the real killer when she finally remembered who he was."

"WHO IS HE?" Adrian almost shouted.

Lucius pulled the younger man away from the house. "Quiet, he might hear us!"

* * *

Harry sighed and placed his glassed back on his face. He told Ron, "Percy promised me at the time that he would make sure that Hermione served no more than six months, and never in Azkaban. He kept part of his bargain. She served a year, but not in Azkaban. No, that honour has been left for your sister."

"Why is Ginny suddenly in jail? And why can't Hermione go free, I mean, really free?" Ron asked.

"There's still a threat," Harry labored. "Ginny's begun to have terrible night terrors. She's starting to remember. And as she starts to remember, the person who cursed her somehow has become aware. Threats have started anew. There's been several attempts against her life even. I thought it would be safer to place her in Azkaban, and under the guise of Hermione Granger. I also wanted to up the ante. I wanted the person who really killed Draco to know that Hermione was free, and that Ginny was untouchable. I wanted that person to KNOW that I KNEW that he had used Polyjuice Potion on Ginny to resemble Hermione before and that I was using it on her now. I wanted him to think that I found out who he was."

Suddenly, Ron grabbed Harry's collar from his side of the cell and dragged him to the bars, pressing him close, with his fist tightly around the other man's shirt. "You're using Hermione as a sort of bait to draw out the killer, aren't you? You're no better than Percy!"

"No! I'm using her to find Draco's killer so she can finally go free! Who better to find out who really killed Malfoy than her, Ron?" Harry asked, his hand coming up to Ron's wrist. "Besides, if you would just remember everything that happened in that room with Malfoy that day, perhaps we wouldn't have resorted to this!"

A young man ran into the room at that moment. He said, "Mr. Potter, should I call for help?"

"No, I'm fine Timmons. Ron will let me go, won't you, Ron?" Harry reflected flatly. Ron did so, slowly. Harry turned to the other man and asked, "Did you want something?"

The younger man said, "You're needed, Mr. Potter. A Mr. Pucey just sent an Owl. He said to meet him and a Master Malfoy at a Miss Granger's house. The note said that they know who the killer is, and that she's not safe. It says, and I quote, 'The killer is with her now' unquote."

Harry took the Owl from the young Auror, read it again quickly and then unlocked the cell in which Ron resided. "Come on, Ron. I may need your help. Hermione was to meet Percy tonight, and the only person protecting her is Theo Nott."

Ron looked white as a sheet and he didn't immediately step out of the cell. Harry, annoyed, repeated, "Now, Ron! I said that I might need your help! She's alone with Percy and only Nott is there to protect her!"

Ron slowly nodded. "Yes, you will need my help. I remember everything. Oh, God, Harry, we have to hurry! She's not in danger from Percy! It's Nott. It was Theo Nott all along!"


	10. Chapter 10 A Place to Conclude

**All Characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter ****10 – A Place**** to Conclude:**

Hermione looked over at Percy Weasley when he first arrived this evening, and she begged off all unnecessary conversations to ask what she really, truly, wanted to know first and foremost. She asked if he killed Draco. He seemed shocked and told her emphatically that NO he did not kill Draco. Then again, she knew that he didn't because he was with her when Draco died.

She asked if he was the Messenger. She really thought that he was. He told her no to that as well. Then she asked if Ron had sent the notes and letters.

"He's not the Messenger, but I think he might still think that I am, so he may be protecting me. No, I know who the Messenger is, I'm sorry to say, and I should have revealed the truth a long time ago, but I had my reasons why I didn't."

"Really?" she asked, suddenly angry. She was tired of people manipulating her life. "If you knew, you had a duty as Minister to tell! You might have saved Draco's life! You might have saved me from going to prison!"

"I might have, but I didn't, did I?" he asked, contritely. "I'm sorry for what happened, and I can't change anything now, but whether or not you believe me, I did have my reasons. We all did."

"To whom are you referring?" she asked with ire.

He ignored her for a moment. He roamed around the room, and then finally sat down in a chair. She sat on the edge of the sofa and waited. "I didn't want you to marry Malfoy. I thought that it wouldn't appear seemly. He was the son of a Death Eater. You were a war hero. You were engaged to my brother, and then right during the middle of my first election you broke your engagement with Ron and began seeing Malfoy. I almost lost the election, and my investigators said that was the main cause."

Hermione barked at that statement. "Nonsense! You barely won because there was some dirt in your background that was discovered! People didn't like that you were a turncoat to the light side during the beginning of the second war, even though you came back to our side at the end. That's why you almost lost the election!"

"Well, when it was time for my re-election, I wasn't about to chance it again," he seethed back. "So yes, I remembered the problems that Malfoy had with letters and notes while he was in school. I even knew who sent them back then, because once when I was Head boy I caught the chap in question, while in action, though because it was Malfoy who was receiving the letters I didn't reprimand the culprit. During the time that you started to date Malfoy, I went to the person and told them it might be advantageous if the notes started anew."

"NO!" She stood up, shocked. "You were responsible for the notes beginning again!"

He looked pained. "Yes, but when they started threatening violence and such, I told the man to tone it down. When you got your first note, I was appalled. I knew Harry Potter would get involved if you were involved directly. The man told me to leave everything to him, and not to worry.

"I found out that this man was using my own sister to pass some of the notes and letters to you and Malfoy. I told Ginny to stop it, but she was already too involved. She was convinced that Harry left her for you. Her thoughts were jumbled. I told her that you loved Malfoy, not Harry, but I think this other man already mucked up her mind with so many lies and stories that she no longer knew truth from fantasy."

Percy stood back up and paced in front of Hermione. She reached inside her skirt to be sure she had her wand, even though she knew she did. It was merely a precaution.

Percy admitted, "I went to Malfoy on the day of your wedding. I told him that there were real threats to you, and if he loved you, he would let you go. He laughed at me, told me that you were the only happiness he had ever felt, and then wished me to rot in hell. I told him I would see him there. I left the room right as this other man, the real Messenger, was about to go to Malfoy."

"I told him to do whatever he had to do to stop the wedding." Percy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them he revealed, "Little did I know that he would use my own sister, under the Imperius, to kill Malfoy to stop the wedding. Little did I know that he would try to modify my own brother's mind to recall memories that weren't there. Little did I know that he would spend the last six months blackmailing me to keep quiet. And lastly, little did I know when I finally figured out a way to get you out of prison, it would all unravel merely because you decided that you wanted to sleep with Lucius Malfoy."

"Don't be crude you pompous son of a bitch," Hermione hissed.

"It's the truth," Percy said. "I wonder…how you would feel if you knew the truth behind the real reasons this man first started harassing Malfoy back in school. Would you be so keen on sleeping with the father, if you knew it was his fault that the son was dead?"

"What?" she barked. Percy wasn't making any sense, and she was tired of it.

Percy concluded, "Nevermind. It no longer matters. Harry's bound to find everything out by now. Ron's on the verge of remembering everything. Harry already knows I can provide you with an alibi, since I was with you when Draco was killed, and as we speak, Lucius Malfoy has discovered that Ginny was under the Imperius to kill Draco. There's only one last loose end, and it will be tied up tightly here tonight, by you and I, won't it, Hermione? Where's Theo Nott?"

That statement felt like a blow to her stomach. "He's not here," she lied, "and what does he have to do with anything?" she quizzed.

The Minister of Magic stood up and said, "Do you want to know who sent the letters to Malfoy while in school, Hermione? Do you want to know who manipulated my sister, and forced her to comply with his dirty deeds, the last of which was to kill Draco? Do you want to know who tried to modify my brother's memory when it was apparent that he heard this man and Draco arguing, AFTER Ron also heard me and Draco arguing?" He waited.

Hermione swallowed hard and nodded her head. His statement was something she had suspected for a long time. "Who was it Percy? Who's responsible for killing Draco? Who ruined my life, and why?"

Theo decided to reveal himself at that moment. He strolled leisurely from the other room and said, "Perhaps I can explain everything, but first, let's get rid of some unnecessary clutter." He pointed his wand at Percy, said a spell, and the man collapsed to the floor.

Hermione turned to look at the man as she screamed.

Lucius, Adrian, Ron and Harry stood outside Hermione's house. It was in a Muggle neighborhood, so they had to take care not to draw unwanted attention. After they Apparated to the back garden, they hid behind a cluster of evergreens. The hour was late, and there was hardly any light from an almost invisible moon. They could only hope that the people inside the house would not know they were outside.

Lucius said, "The memories were locked so deeply in Miss Weasley's brain that I thought I would never sift through the muck to arrive at the truth. It was truly like looking through a sieve. At first I could only see little holes of truth amidst empty thoughts, blackness, and fallacy. Then, once the truth started to sift through, it was as if I couldn't stop it and I saw everything clearly."

He looked at Harry first and said, "She was manipulated because she had an unfounded jealousy of Hermione. She thought that you were slipping away from her, and she blamed Hermione for that. She didn't understand why everyone was so taken and fascinated, even infatuated, with a Muggle-born witch. She became obsessed with ruining Hermione's life.

"She knew that Hermione and Draco were being sent notes of a harassing nature. She revealed that she wanted to send Hermione notes as well. It seemed that one day the actual Messenger caught her as she was staging that one nasty little ploy with the 'fake' Hermione dangling from the tree, and the note to Draco saying that Hermione had been killed."

A sudden scream from the house stopped Lucius cold. He stopped talking and bent low at the waist, looking toward the house. The other men stared at the house as well. Harry made a silent motion with his hand and they all stepped closer. They were now right outside the back patio door.

In a loud whisper, Harry said, "Continue your story."

"No, we have to get in there to save her!" Lucius barked. "I'll tell you the rest later. She's not safe in there with only the Minister of Magic and Theo Nott!"

Adrian, who had yet to hear the story, placed a hand on Lucius' arm and said, "I'm sure Granger can protect herself, and Theo won't let her come to harm."

Lucius was about to say something when he was interrupted by Ron. Ron pushed the other three men aside to stand on a chair so that he might look in the kitchen window. Then he said, "I can't see a thing. She doesn't have to worry about Percy. He might be a bit of a nutter, and a fanatic, but he's not the Messenger, or the killer. He wanted me to think that he sent the messages, for some odd reason, but he's not responsible. He's also not the one that killed Malfoy."

"How do you know, Ron?" Harry asked.

Ron looked at Harry and then to Lucius. Lucius looked back toward Harry and answered, "I believe your friend has finally remembered. Ginny revealed to me that Ron saw the real killer in the room with my son right before his sister was cursed to kill him. This man and Draco were arguing. This man admitted everything to Draco, and Ron overheard the whole thing. When the man left, he Oblivated Mr. Weasley, who then went back into the room with my son, right before Ginny walked in the room posing as Hermione."

Harry's worst fears were realized with that one statement. He had continued to hope that somehow Ginny wasn't responsible, either by Imperio or otherwise, of killing Draco. It was a false hope, squashed by that one statement from Lucius Malfoy.

Ron jumped down from the chair and repeated, "Damn, I can't see a thing." He took a deep breath and said, "Yes, Percy had just walked out of Malfoy's room and passed by me. He told me to try to stop the wedding. He said he was going to go do the same with Hermione. I went in and argued with Malfoy for a bit, but then walked out of the room to calm down. Mainly I walked out because I thought Percy was eavesdropping on our conversation.

"Then, right before I was to go back into Malfoy's room, I walked toward the connecting hallway and I saw someone else walk in the room before I could. I stood right outside while they talked. I heard bits and pieces, but not much. I heard enough to know that this man wasn't right in the head. I knew that he hated Malfoy. He was twisted with envy and jealousy. He was obsessed with Hermione.

"He said that he found solace and comfort from Ginny, who he discovered felt the same hatred, but hers was toward Hermione where his was toward Malfoy. He admitted to being the Messenger to Malfoy, and he also said that Ginny had begun sending messages, too.

"Malfoy told him to leave. He said he would never tell anyone that he was the one sending the notes, but he had to leave. There were some other harsh words, punctuated with curse words, but I didn't really hear much more. The man walked out of Draco's room and looked at me. He knew I had overheard. He pointed his wand at me and shouted, 'Oblivate' before I had a chance even to draw my wand. I remember feeling lost and confused. I didn't even know why I was in the corridor. He bade me to go to Malfoy and to try to convince him not to go through with the wedding, or someone would pay. He said I didn't have much time, because otherwise Malfoy would die very soon."

"Of course, we all know what happened next. I went back in to talk to Malfoy. He was still clenching the man's note in his hand. I tried to convince him to leave Hermione alone. He laughed at me. He asked me why everyone was trying to ruin his wedding day. He said that first Percy tried to ruin it, then the other man, and now me. Then, while Draco was talking, Ginny walked in and lifted her wand and killed him. The thing that haunts me to this day is that Malfoy smiled when she first walked in, because he thought it was Hermione. She looked just like her. I swear, I thought it was Hermione, too, but now I know it was the Polyjuice Potion.

"Still, there was something in her eyes that told me right away who she really was, but I was compelled not to tell anyone. She reached down, grabbed the Messenger's last note from Draco's hand, and walked out of the small room.

"Right after, the real Hermione ran in and she cradled Draco in her arms, and started to scream and cry." Ron shook his head and said, "And to think - I only just recalled that tonight. I could have saved Hermione a whole year in jail! I could have saved her from whatever might happen to her tonight!"

"It's not your fault, mate," Harry reassured. "If something happens to her in there, it's my fault, not yours. I should have figured this out a long time ago."

"No, that honour falls to me, Mr. Potter," Lucius said sternly. He drew his wand out of his pocket. "For I was the one that insisted she have that man in there with her tonight, and there's even one last dark reason why it's my fault, and no one else's."

Adrian and Harry were still confused. Ron stood back up on the chair, peered back into the window and said, "Don't be so hard on yourself, Malfoy. If anyone is to blame, it's Theo Nott."

Percy awoke. He rubbed his sore head slowly. He had overheard most of Theo Nott's rambling admission of guilt to Hermione, but it made no difference. He doubted very much if he or Hermione would leave this house alive tonight.

He looked over at Hermione. She was sitting on the couch, and she seemed numb. As if sensing the very same thing that Percy was sensing, Theo shouted to her: "LISTEN TO ME!" He continued to tell Hermione how he was responsible for everything and Percy could do very little but remain on the floor in pain and listen. When the man threatened to kill him, he could scarcely believe that Hermione would still care enough about him to plead with the man, but she did.

She said, "Oh, please, no. Percy, no."

Theo Nott stood over him and with his foot on Percy's chest and he pointed his wand at him. However, he looked right at Hermione and said, "Shall I kill him, Hermione? Get this all over and done? We can tell everyone that HE admitted to being the Messenger. We'll tell everyone that he was obsessed with you. They would believe it. He had access to places at Hogwarts that other people didn't, being a prefect and then Head boy. He could have easily planted all those earlier letters. After all, he knew about them since the beginning."

Theo cocked his head to the side and glanced down at Percy. Hermione stood and tried to dart into the other room. Theo quickly pointed his wand at her, and to duck the spell she crashed into a curio cabinet. Everything on the shelves fell down on top of her.

"Bad form, Granger, trying to run away," Theo said as Hermione crawled from the broken glass and wood to hide behind a chair. She drew her wand out of her pocket and waited.

She said, "Fine, leave him to live, and we'll tell everyone whatever you want. I'll do whatever you want if you let Percy live."

He laughed. "I don't believe you, pet. You won't do whatever I want. You love Malfoy senior now. He's ten times worse than Draco. You wouldn't leave the younger one, even when I threatened you both with death. Why should I believe that you 'd leave the older one now? It's laughable, that's what it is. Especially as this all started because of Lucius Malfoy."

"What does Lucius have to do with this?" Hermione asked from her hiding place.

"All good things come to those who wait, Granger," Theo said happily. "Now, come out and play."

"No. I rather like it behind the chair right now, thank you. Tell me, Theo, how did you get Ginny to kill Draco?" she asked, peeking out from behind the chair.

"Her mind was so weak. She was so easy to manipulate. Her hatred of you and her lack of self-esteem made her a willing puppet," he admitted. "And it was perfect. She thought she was going to send notes all on her own, so I used her. It punished both Draco and you."

"Imperius Curse, right?" Hermione asked. She slowly stood up to face the man who had ruined her life, who had cost her a year of freedom, had orchestrated the death of her fiancé, and was pointing a wand at her.

"Yes, and easily done. I also Oblivated her memory, which left her a bit permanently rattled, I'm afraid. I had to do some mind altering to the younger brother as well." He looked down at Percy, who was still and motionless. His eyes were opened, but his breathing was labored. "I think the older brother is going to have to die, though."

Hermione assessed the situation and pleaded, "Let's get help for Percy, please. We don't even have to wait for them to arrive. We'll send for help, and then I'll go anywhere you want."

"Why do you care what happens to him?" Theo snarled. He kicked Percy in the ribs. The other man winced and moaned from his place on the floor. "He knew you couldn't have killed Malfoy! He wouldn't give you an alibi, even though he was with you! Why do you care what happens to him, when he didn't care what happened to you? He sent his own brother in to talk to Malfoy, to do his dirty work, if you may, at my suggestion! True, he didn't know that I had just moments before left his sister, having already seen to her transformation and having already cursed her with the Imperius, and that I wanted Ron there to be the star witness.

"He cares more for his career than for his family! He could have helped you a long time ago! He could have called in experts to help unravel the fragile tissue paper mind of his only sister a year ago! He could have called in his own brother, Bill, to cut through the dark curse that I set upon his younger brother Ron. He could have even told Potter that I was the Messenger, but no, he cared only about appearances, and his career, and being re-elected, not you, not her, not him, so let me kill him Hermione and WE WILL ALL BE BETTER OFF!" He shouted the last part, deranged and frazzled.

Hermione walked without urgency toward Theo. "Enough people have died. You didn't have to ruin so many lives, Theo. You ruined Ginny's life, Ron's life, Harry's life, Lucius' life and mine. More than that, you took a life. You are responsible for the death of the person who meant the most to me in this world."

She raised her wand and pointed in at him. "For that reason alone," she began, "I just decided that I can't let you ruin another life. You will pay for your sins, Theo. You will. You don't get to decide the outcome of this one. I do. Others have already paid, and now it's your turn. Making you pay will help to soothe the ravishing rage that's deep inside my soul." She stepped even closer. "You have to pay."

Theo stepped over Percy and pointed his wand at her. They stood, facing each other, arms extended; their wands stretched out and pointed at the other. "I loved you," Theo finally said.

"I didn't know that, nor do I care," Hermione said dispassionately. "And if it's any consolation, I could never have loved you in return."

"WHY?" he shouted. "You loved Malfoy! He was a Death Eater's son! He was no better than me!"

"Wrong! He was better than you!" she argued, the anger in her voice apparent. "He wasn't a killer. He wasn't a manipulator!"

"NO!" Theo mocked. "He was the bloody love of your live, wasn't he? Are you going to cry now?"

"I'm not going to cry," she responded without passion. "And sorry to disagree with you again, but he was my best friend, not the love of my life. That title belongs to someone else. What he was, was a troubled man, who repented his past sins and transgressions, and who sorely needed the love that I could give him. He found love and peace with me, and I with him, we would have been happy together, and you had no right to take that away. You ruined it all. And I will make you pay."

"You make me laugh," he said with a smile, his wand still pointed at her chest. He walked ever closer. That was what she wanted. She wanted him to walk closer to her. "Tell me, Hermione, if he wasn't the love of your life, who was, or should I say, who is? Is it Malfoy senior, because I have a little bit of news for you that will flatten that notion right out of you like a bug on a rug."

"You bore me," Hermione said steadily. "Let's stop this dance. It's time to pay for your sins. It's time to assuage my rage."

"Really," he laughed. "What are you really going to do? As soon as a curse comes out of your lips, one will come out of mine as well. You may take me down, but be assured pet, I'll take you down with me. While I bet you don't have it in you to kill someone face-to-face, looking them in the eyes, that won't be a problem for me."

"Is that why you had someone else kill Draco, because you're so brave?" she asked. She knew that questioned stung him. His face hardened.

"I repeat, my sweet," he snapped, "you won't be able to utter a death curse at me. For one thing, you'll be dead before the words come out of your mouth, for another thing…"

She interrupted him. "For another thing, you talk entirely too much," she said evenly. "And you're right; I won't be able to kill you face-to-face. I won't be able to utter the death curse at you before you utter it at me. I won't have to because that honor will fall to the man who is pointing a wand at your back as we speak, right Lucius?"

Her eyes darted to someone who stood behind the other man.

Theo quickly averted his gaze behind his back. He stared in the eyes of Lucius Malfoy, who held up his wand, pointed it at Theo, and then to answer her question he said a very simple incantation: "Avada Kedarva."

Theo Nott fell to the ground dead.

Harry ran to Hermione. Ron ran to Percy, who was on the floor beside the dead man. Adrian turned Theo over to his back, and then closed the man's eyes.

Hermione lifted her head from Harry's shoulder and looked over at Lucius. She held out her hand for him. His gaze drifted from the dead man on the floor, then to Hermione. He said, "Who's the love of your life, Hermione? You never answered his question."

She pushed away from Harry and said, "You are." She looked bewildered. She started toward him, but he held up his hand and backed away.

He looked back down at Percy and said, "Are you going to tell her the rest of the story, so that all of this will end?"

Percy sat up, aided by Adrian and Ron. Hermione asked, "Tell me what?"

Percy clenched his side, in pain, and struggling to stand with the help of the others. He said, "Back in school, when I found the notes, I went to Draco's head of house first, to tell him what I found. He said he would look into it. Later, he told me, in confidence, that it would stop, and that Theo was only sending them because…" Percy stopped and looked from Hermione to Lucius. "It doesn't matter, Malfoy. None of this will change anything. It was so long ago, and it means nothing. It has nothing to do with why Nott did what he did, why I did what I did. It has nothing to do with why my sister is sitting in Azkaban. It will serve no purpose."

Hermione felt as if she might falter, faint, or some other such nonsense. Sensing this, Harry rushed to her side. He was the one that said, "Finish, Percy. What do you know."

Percy merely shook his head and said, "No, because it doesn't matter."

Lucius turned to Hermione and said, "Back when you were in school, Theo told his father that my son was infatuated with you. Nott senior told me. I devised the plan of sending him notes, to remind him that he was a pureblood, you were a Mudblood, and that he had to remember his family's honour. It was only to be for a short duration. I never knew it continued."

Hermione's face crumbled and she started to cry. She turned to Harry and fell into his arms. Lucius added, "Snape talked to me about it, when the Weasley boy discovered the notes. I told him that I would make sure Theo Nott knew to stop. I was assured that he had. I swear I had no knowledge that he was the person sending the recent notes. I'm so sorry. I also had no idea that the notes and threats continued all through school. When I found out that they continued while you were dating my son, I was guaranteed by Theo that he was not behind it. He said that Ginny Weasley was. He caught her in the act even, so I believed him. I'm sorry."

Hermione looked up from Harry's shoulder, raised a hand to Lucius and merely said, "Enough. Everyone, kindly leave my house."

"Does that include me?" Lucius asked sarcastically, "The love of your life?"

"I said everyone," she said with a heavy sigh as she walked out of the room. Harry ran to her, told her he would see that everything was cleaned up and that the house was secured. She walked up the stairs, uncovered the furniture in one of the guestrooms, and sat in a chair by the window into the wee hours of the morning.

She was finally free. She was free of suspicion, she was free of persecution, she was free of the threat of the Messenger, and the threat of having to go back to jail. Most of all, she was free of the rage that had eaten most of her heart and soul for so very long. She was also free of Lucius Malfoy. That last one hurt her to her very core. She started to cry and couldn't stop.

She was crying so hard that she didn't hear him come in the door.

(_Coming up, possibly tomorrow or the next day, a short epilogue)_


	11. Chapter 11 A Final Place: An Epilogue

**All characters belong to JKR **

**Epilogue:**

**A Final Place**** –**

All throughout the night, Hermione tried to make all her wrongs right again by putting them in their proper places, if only in her mind. There was a place for everything and before the morning came, she would find that single place for everything that haunted her still. Everything crooked would be made straight. Everything wrong would be made right. Everything tired would be put to rest. Everything that had once seemed impossible to overcome was obtainable – at least in theory. Once everything was in its proper place, she could finally find happiness.

First thing in the morning, she would open up the rest of this house. She would take all of the books and dishes and pictures out of storage. She would try to make it a house again. It wouldn't be a home without Draco, but perhaps it could be a house. Then, if she was lucky, she might be able to go see her parents. She missed them like mad. Just thinking of them made her cry.

She knew she wouldn't be able to go back to work at the Ministry. She might not ever be able to face Percy again. She didn't care. There were all sorts of things she could do with her life…she always wanted to write, or perhaps she would take up gardening, although it was winter. Perhaps she would repaint every single room in the house. Draco had intended to do that after their honeymoon.

They had planned to go to Greece. Maybe she could still go there.

She cried harder.

The thought of facing everything alone terrified her. She truly despised herself for feeling that last little indignity. Loneliness should be outlawed, but if it were the last feeling that needed a place, she would consider herself lucky. The last year had been hell, and the only thing that had gotten her through it was her rage and hatred at Draco's killer. Draco's killer was dead. Lucius killed him. What did she have now?

Last night had been dreadful. If she counted dreadful ordeals on both hands, starting with her right, last night would probably go either on the last finger of her right hand or the first finger of her left hand.

She thought she would feel happier after avenging Draco's death. Without a doubt, she didn't. She wanted to continue to blame someone, and Lucius was a convenient target, but truthfully, he had done so many worst things in his life than to have one of his son's schoolmates send him notes reminding him of his duty to blood purity. Lucius never meant for it to go beyond that. He never knew it became an obsession with Theo. He trusted the man. He was supposedly one of Draco's best friends. He had worked for Lucius for years.

It wasn't Lucius' fault. She started crying harder. She rocked herself back and forth and said, "It's not his fault. I won't hate him, because it's not his fault." There was no place in her life for blame or hate. She needed room for bigger and better emotions than those.

Lucius knew the only way he had a remote chance for happiness in his life was if he went back to her, begged for her forgiveness, and then moved along with some normalcy. However, he never begged. He never would. Still, they could have some measure of contentment if only he would go to her. It was that simple.

Before Harry finish securing her house he allowed Lucius entrée to the wards. Lucius let himself back in before dawn. He walked slowly up the stairs, started across the landing to the room that he knew she had once shared with his son, but then he heard her crying from another part of the house. He turned the other direction, walked down the hall, and went to a doorway. He stood outside the open door and watched her for only a moment, and then he slipped inside.

She wasn't in bed. He would have thought that she would have been. She was sitting in a chair, which was tilted toward a window. The drapes were closed, besides which, it was pitch black outside, but still she was facing the window. Still she cried.

Her tears made him angry. He wasn't angry at her. He wasn't angry at himself. He was angry at the world. Yes…that was the cause of his anger…the world.

She had on a long flannel nightgown trimmed with lace. Her hair was down and long, shining in the mostly dark room. All he could think was that he wanted her. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted her to stay with him. He wanted her to forgive him. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted her to comfort him…he wanted, he wanted, he wanted.

Why was everything so easy for him and so hard for her? She undoubtedly felt guilty. He was the one that should feel guilty, yet he found it hard to feel such a useless emotion. Guilt was merely a culmination of many other emotions, piled upon horrors felt and reciprocated. He felt HER. He felt love. Still, he didn't feel guilt.

Odd.

She felt as well, because he knew she finally felt his presence in the room. She didn't turn to face him. She didn't stop crying. Nevertheless, he knew she was aware he was there. He said her name. "Hermione?"

She turned her face away from him.

"Is that how it's to end? Is this how the story will conclude. Is this the place where we say goodbye, and never see each other again?" He walked closer, sat on the bed, and heaved his shoulders in a sigh.

He waited. Was she going to respond to him? Was she going to call him names, blame him for everything? Was she going to tell him it was over before it had even begun? Did she assume that he missed his son any less than she did, just because he wasn't crying, or blaming someone.

Blaming her.

Blaming himself.

"I won't feel guilty," he snapped, highly aware that she hadn't blamed him for anything. He stood up and paced behind her chair. He could tell that she tensed slightly. He continued to walk back and form, his feet digging a trench in the carpet. "I know you blame me, as well you should. You blame me for so many things, what's one more? But I refuse to feel guilty. I refuse to say I'm sorry. We found Draco's killer. It's not my fault. I had no clue he was the killer. If I had known, I would have stopped him long ago. I would never have trusted him with you!"

Lucius' voice was rising and he stopped right behind her chair. Still, she stared toward the window. He took a hold of the back of the chair and continued, "If I had known that bastard was tormenting my son all through school I would have strung him up by his balls and made him pay! If I had known he was tormenting you, and was endangering your and Draco's happiness, I would have killed him myself! If I had known…" He stopped, swallowed hard, and clenched his teeth.

He stroked her hair, and then held her shoulder. Then, without tenderness he pulled her from the chair, forced her to face him, stood her in front of him and said, "I am not responsible for my son's death so stop blaming me!"

She continued to cry.

"STOP IT!" he shouted.

She cried harder.

He pushed her back into the chair. He turned away from her, sunk to his knees, and said, "I was such a fool. I didn't figure it out. Why? I could have stopped it. I don't want to feel like this." His hand clutched his robes in front of his heart. He struggled for a breath, for words, for meaning. He was embarrassed. He was ashamed. HE WAS FULL OF GUILT AND SHAME.

She reached for his arm. "Lucius, there's not a place for guilt or blame, so please don't feel like this."

He stood quickly, stumbled slightly and said, "Don't you dare pity me!"

She didn't. She wouldn't. "You need to let go of your rage, Lucius. I finally have. That's why I'm crying. I'm not crying because I hate you, or because I blame you, or because I feel guilty, or even because I think you should feel guilty. I would never pity you. I'm crying because I'm finally free."

He swiveled toward her slowly. "Yes, I feel rage, deep inside, Hermione, and I'm ashamed to say that I feel as if it's killing me."

He ran his palm down her sleeve and back up again. Then he lowered his head and placed his mouth upon hers. Her lips trembled under his. He slid his arms around her waist, drew her to him, and kissed her freely, and perhaps for the first time, he kissed her without guilt. Fine, so he had felt guilt. He had felt it for a long time. But no more.

"I still need to hear you say you forgive me, whether or not you think I'm guilty," he admitted.

"Fine, if it will help you, to place blame at your feet, and to place the act of forgiveness at mine, then I forgive you, Lucius, if you forgive me," she said in a whisper.

They backed up toward the bed. They continued to kiss gently, his lips moving over hers like a warm caress, hers moving over his with a gentle urgency. He licked her top lip lightly with his tongue. When she opened her mouth and moaned, he placed his tongue inside and licked the soft, moist flesh her found there.

Her hands moved around to the front of his robes and parted them, removing them from his shoulders. He kissed all around her face, her temples, her chin, her jaw, and her neck and throat. He kissed down to the lace trim of her proper little nightgown and then he pulled it apart and kissed her bare breasts, cupping one with his large hand, as he kissed and paid reverence to the other.

Her hands moved around his neck, then to his hard chest, down the planes and slopes of his back and ribs. He murmured things to her like, "My beautiful, Hermione," and "I love you."

She had sorted through so many things in her mind last night and this morning, but never once did she think about where Lucius would fit in her now nice tidy little life. Where did he belong? Where was his place in her life? He had made a place for her in his, but she hadn't truly done the same for him. Yet he had just told her that he loved her. She knew that he did. She loved him, too. She had even told Theo that Lucius was the love of her life. Perhaps that was his place. Of course, she knew Lucius had already snuck back into the room when she said it. She said it for his sake, not for Theo's.

Still, he had a right to hear it again.

He stroked her breasts with his tongue, took the peaks in his mouth, and touched her stomach, her hips, and her thighs. He was inside her. Hermione held onto him tightly. They were weaving an ancient tapestry together, up and down, around, in and out. He was memorizing everything about her. He wanted her to be his. He wanted to grow old with her. He wanted to have another child with her. He wanted to hear…

"I love you," she said right before she climaxed.

"It's about time you said it," he said. Then he added, "You're mine." He didn't care how old fashioned it sounded. She was truly his and she would have to deal with the consequences. He slid his hands under her hips, gasped aloud, remained on the brink, the edge, and when he fell over the top, he felt safe and secure knowing that she wasn't leaving him. He wasn't leaving her. There was nothing left to keep them apart.

No fear of her going back to jail.

No threat to her life.

No discoveries left as to who killed their beloved Draco.

Now, there were only each other. He felt overpowered by emotions again. If he was a different man, he might have cried. However, he was Lucius Malfoy. It took a lot to admit that he felt guilt earlier. He wouldn't admit, not even to her, how much he needed her, or how deeply he would bleed if she left him. He would barely admit it to himself. He knew what he felt. That was enough.

Her body grew soft and relaxed. He rolled off her, lifted his weight to his elbow, and he studied her in the darkness. Her eyes were closed, her skin glistened. Her hair was in tangles around her on the pillow. Her mouth was slightly open. He leaned forward and kissed her lips again, and then pulled her into his arms.

"Tell me what you were contemplating when I first came upon you, Hermione. Why were you crying?" he asked. He knew she was still awake, so he knew she would answer.

"I was merely trying to sort through everything that had happened," she admitted. "I was trying to put everything in its proper place in my mind, so that I could pick up the pieces and continue to live."

"How can I help you?" he inquired. He brushed a lazy hand up and down her arm. "If I can help you put just one thing in its proper place, what would it be?" He looked down at her with a slight smirk on his face. He said it with a teasing tone, but she looked up at him so earnestly, so honestly, that he stopped smiling and said, "Truly, what one thing can I give you, to help you put everything back in its place? If you want my love, you have it. If you want my home, it's yours. My heart belongs to you already, so I cannot give you that. Tell me, Hermione."

She waited for a moment then said, "You've already given me everything that I've needed and wanted, and I thank you for it. You helped me put everything in its place from the start. In the beginning, I merely wanted a place to start over again. I wanted to sooth the rage within me, and I wanted to find Draco's killer. I didn't know how to begin doing any of that, so yes, in the beginning I just wanted a place to start anew. You gave that to me, so thank you." She drew on his chest with her index finger.

"Is there anything else that you want?" he asked.

She looked up at him and answered, "Well, I wanted a place to stay, where I could feel safe. You gave that to me, too, so again, thank you."

"You're welcome. That's not quite what I mean, but if that's what you needed, I'm glad I gave it to you. Was there anything else you want?"

"As I said, you've already given me everything that I needed. I needed some time to rest, so I could remember, and so I could learn to love again. I needed to work through all the deceit and muck, I needed to know the truth, and then most of all I needed it all to end. I needed to discover what I would do after it was all over, and now I just need a conclusion to all of this. I need you to promise to love me forever. You're the love of my life."

He laughed slightly and said, "You're so delightful. So full of flowery phrases. When I asked you that question, I merely thought you would say that you needed a place to put a diamond ring or something simple like that. I thought a finger would do."

She slapped his chest, hard, and he winced. She looked up at him and smiled. He smiled in return. "Fine…I'm happy I was able to give you a place for all of that. But if you do decide you want a diamond ring, a carat or two, to put on this finger right here," he held up her hand and kissed her fourth finger, "just let me know and I'll oblige."

"Talk about sentimental rubbish," she said with a yawn.

"I'm a sentimental old man, what can I say?"

"You're not sentimental," she said, closing her eyes.

He frowned. He poked her on the chest. She opened her eyes. "You were supposed to say that I wasn't old."

"Well now, I'm the truthful one of us two. I can't be deceitful like that, Lucius." She laughed and then cuddled next to his chest before she closed her eyes.

Lucius smiled and held her tight. She put him in his place, didn't she?

A place to say…The End


End file.
